Letter names or sounds first?… you might be surprised by the answer

There is no one way to teach children. It would be like doling out the same prescription to everyone with a pain of some kind. The article seems to agree, in suggesting building upon "most" and I will add EACH kids' strongest knowledge base. Teachers must individualize; some children need more letter instruction, some need to learn to listen to sounds first, and some need a mix. Others need to make letters before they can learn to identify them or associate them with sounds. A good teacher is informed about many approaches and learns what is next for each student. Period.

Sandy--

How does a teacher know what works best and how do you ever know if the teacher made the best choice? I hope your doctor pays attention to research when treating you and doesn't just depend on his/her intuition (since doctors are always right).

tim

It makes more sense to teach letters and sounds together for kindergarten ...a apple /a/, b bat /b/, etc. I have seen kindergarten teachers teach a letter a week when students already know the letter(s) and instruct sounds separately. So boring and slow moving. Kids could be decoding words much earlier.

Teaching letter names in k-1 is important for truespel. Truespel phonetics uses only letters of the alphabet to spell the sounds of US English. This links phonics with phonetics. In fact teaching phonetics obviates the need to teach phonics because a phonetically spelled word \can be associated with a traditionally spelled word. No need to remember the 10 or so of ways of spelling a sound. See a listing of truespel studies at https://bit.ly/2D7V3CH Many phoneme frequency facts are here because truespel is spreadsheet amenable.. Truespel is free with tutorials and converter at truespel.com .

Tim- I agree with you on this- teach letter names and sounds at the same time. I was surprised that you included many exemplars of the letter B to prove your point. You demonstrated the need for letter invariance so that children can begin to construct semantic categories of letter exemplars. I still stand firm in my proclamation that many children need to be explicitly taught the concept of letter invariance. In 2009 book Reading in the Brain, Deheane concluded: " I therefore think it very likely that dyslexia arises from a joint deficit of vision and language. The weakness itself probably rests somewhere at the crossroads between invariant visual recognition and phonemic processing." Letter naming fluency and letter-sound fluency are reviewed daily in the Heggerty Kindergarten PA book. Instead of using the Heggerty letter sound cards that display one capital and one lower case letter, I made cards that show five different upper and lowercase variants. This concept should be taught to all emergent readers as part of comprehensive Tier One instruction, but the children that need it most include children with autism, dyslexia and ESL.

"It's interesting that people who are saying that we should follow brain science ignore data when it comes to practical issues. I'd rather follow the empirical data any day than untested theories and indirect inferences." This statement is exactly what I've been thinking about this letter name versus sound argument for some time. Thank you for posting this information. One doesn't get to pick the science they agree with and disregard what doesn't fit with their own misguided notions, even if those notions are well-intended.

The following makes me think that the "empirical data" for names vs. sounds isn't as definitive as we'd like it to be, especially the reference to an "opinion rather than a data-based, science of reading claim".

"I definitely wouldn’t start with the sounds first, though that doesn’t seem to be a problem in the U.K. I think of the unifying value of letter names as being foundational knowledge, so I feel more comfortable starting there. That approach, however, is an opinion rather than a data-based, science of reading claim. That opinion is drawn from my experiences in teaching children and in my estimation of my own pedagogical skills (those with greater skills may be able to succeed with less likely bets)."

In Dehaene's statement about letter names, how "far from being helpful" they "may even delay the acquisition of reading", the use of the word 'may' sounds like an opinion to me. If Tim can have an opinion that isn't a "data-based, science of reading claim", why can't Dehaene?

Hi Tim,
Firstly, I'd like to say that I'm a big fan of your work and that I really like the honesty of your blog in that you obviously try hard to be as even-handed as you can in your presentation of the evidence.
You are correct is stating that, in the UK, many practitioners see no need to teach letter names, at least in the first year of teaching reading and writing. Why, we ask, would teachers teach that the spelling < m > is both 'em' and /m/? If children are reading the word 'mat', why would we teach 'em' 'ay' 'tee', rather than /m/ /a/ /t/, especially when children can actually hear the word 'mat' if they say the sounds precisely.
For many children, especially those who come from low SES backgrounds, teaching both letter names and sounds imposes too great a cognitive load in the beginning stages of learning to read and write. As the code become more complex, letter names are a useful short cut. For example, "How do we spell the sound in /ee/ in 'stream', Miss?" "It's the 'ee' 'ay' spelling." Even so, writing the required spelling on a whiteboard/in the student's book is equally helpful.
Many of us in the UK think that the orientation of much teaching in the US is far too derivative of O-G programs, rather than the approach you mention in the blog advocated by Professor Diane McGuinness.
Neither does it matter what an English speaker's accent is. If teachers teach their students from sound to print, then the approach is able to accommodate any and all accents of English. Thus, whether, you say the spelling < a > in 'bath' as /a/ or as /ar/, doesn't matter: one should teach to the accents of the students. A McGuinnessian sound-to-print approach works for all accents of English.
One point on which we would most decidedly agree with you: the advice you give on the power of writing. When children build a word, they say the sounds and they write it, saying each individual sound. This, as you say, assists the process of getting the information into long-term memory.
I subscribe to the blog and learn much from it. Thank you.
John

I believe in E. Deshant’s model of phonological awareness which has a larger impact on sound letter learning. I start students off with strung out consonants. I use pictures to help discriminate: likes and difference. We look for letters in words. Once they can hear likes and differences, I quickly introduce print awareness. It is important to teach students Sounds and letters through Phonological Awareness.

So what is to be said about kindergarten students who have learned the sounds of most letters but cannot recognize the letter by name. Our curriculum teaches both at the same time but we have some students who cannot retain the name of the letter. While I understand that the sound is what will eventually lead to reading it baffles me as to why they can't learn the names.

Once again, an informative and timely post. I want to add some thoughts. Although I am a big proponent of teaching the letter names and sound together for K and 1, I have often experienced students attempting to decode a word such as 'cat' this way:

'C' (letter name), 'cat' (key word to anchor sound), /k/ (letter sound)--->'A' (letter name), 'apple' (key word to anchor sound), /a/ (letter sound)---> 'T' (letter name) 'top' (key word to anchor sound), /t/ (letter sound)

And never come up with the word 'cat'....and therefore never come close to associating this word to anything meaningful...

So a word of caution is needed here. It is imperative that teachers emphasize the need to convey to their students that these visual letter forms (and yes, writing sure does help) represent the sounds of our language...another way to say it would be: the sounds of our language are represented using letter forms. Simply reciting letter names, key anchor words, sounds does not necessarily convey this totally necessary piece of information. That is why teaching phonological awareness in conjunction with the use of letters is so important. I would take it a step further to say that it is best to use lower case letters while doing these exercises to improve decoding and spelling.

Stanislaus Dehaene believes the letter/sound conundrum to be a "chicken and egg" issue since "the two types of learning are so tightly linked that it is impossible to tell which come first, the grapheme (letter name) or the phoneme (sound)--both arise together and enhance each other."

Teresa
The studies show that it works both ways. If your kids come to school knowing the sounds then teaching the letters will go faster since they’ll use that knowledge to help them remember the names.

Tim

Gwen

Better to follow the actual data on kids’ learning than distant hypotheses.

Tim

I agree Letter sound, Letter name and Letter formation - multi-sensory learning is a strong combination. But I also recall Moats saying that you should start with sound as in her book Speech to Print.

Does the same go for Spanish?

Here's some real life relevance. In one of my first grade intervention sessions today, a student did a great job mastering the 'i_e' spelling in 'wipe' but not such a good job with the /w/ sound, writing 'yipe'. Oh, those pesky letter names can be confusing for some!

Research-based guidance is in view! Hang on! Evidence explains Teresa's insightful comments about kids learning letter knowledge so unevenly. Why this is so isn't readily observable which is where reading science can help.

Letters are not created equally. Key intra-letter differences for LN, LS, visual form (recognition), and formation (writing) all impact learning. Also the phonological structure of LNs and LSs. A practical research outcome could be guidance for grouping and sequencing letter learning.

To clarify, here's one example. Letters with rhyming names ( B, D, P, etc.) are harder for LN learning but easier for LS learning. Another finding: letters with inconsistent or ambiguous LN-LS help develop deeper levels of phonemic awareness (deletion, substitution).

Studies are converging. One day the evidence could create a high-impact "jigsaw approach" to teaching letter knowledge. This research further explains why the answer is complex as Tim's answer indicates. Translating research takes time and further implementation studies of course. But i'm hopeful this work will bring focus to letter learning.

Hang on!

Harriet--

As my blog indicates, kids can be confused by one letter or another. But, the research suggests that those confusions are short lived and don't outweigh the supports that the letter names provide. It is knowledge that most American kids bring to schools and they will use it for good or bad (but the bad is pretty minor).

tim

Theresa--

You can proceed on the basis of what someone tells you or you can follow the research... I'd rather go with the empirical data when it comes to my kids and grandkids.

tim

Katrina--

I know of no research on that in Spanish. My understanding is that children tend to learn letter names early on in Spain, but I don't know about other Spanish-speaking countries. The Spanish names and sounds are consistent enough that leading with what the children are most likely to know would the direction I would go since the benefit of letter name knowledge would be consistent across alphabetic languages and sounds help students to learn letters and letters help to learn sounds.

tim

I really enjoyed your post and this perspective! I teach 1st grade students, and during intervention sessions with some of my students I teach letter name/sound at the same time to best help them learn. I found with my students this is the most efficient way to help them remember. Thank you for the post!

This perspective was very interesting! I teach kindergarten and have always taught names and then letters. I enjoy knowing the reasoning behind the progression.

Thank you for this. My granddaughter, just turned three, has been playing with letters and their sounds since last April. A neighbor who is a kindergarten teacher painted an "obstacle course" on the street for the neighborhood children to enjoy. It included the alphabet in a meandering line for the children to hop on.

Lately she has been absorbed with sorting -- I have a big bowl of buttons, shaped like letters. I'd say she knows more than half of the letter names, and quite a few consonant sounds. It's all play, not teaching. She's still in the scribbling phase of writing development, but I'll keep your advice about writing the letters when her fine motor control develops enough to be able to enjoy writing.

Tim- Have you changed your position that teachers do not need to explicitly teach the concept of letter invariance and that there is no need to display variant letterforms? In the past, you stated that the letters' look did not matter based on Tinker's legibility of print research. His research was not limited to dyslexic readers, and the mean age of the subjects was 18 years old. Therefore these readers had years of statistical learning needed to become immune to letter variants. In the Book "Reading and the Brain," Dehaene stated that dyslexics do not show strong left occipito- temporal activation that indicates access to "the brain's letterbox" and signals the invariant visual recognition of letter strings. Their brain activity moreover is much greater than normal in the right temporo- parietal region. In the chapter entitled "The Brain's Letterbox," he writes, "For the letterbox area, therefore, the letters G and g are as similar as O and o a clear proof that this region has adapted to the conventions of our alphabet. That neurons respond in the same way to the shape g and G cannot be attributed to an innate organization of vision. It necessarily results from a learning process that has incorporated cultural practices into the appropriate brain networks. In this respect, it is interesting to contrast the left hemisphere area with the symmetrical visual region in the right hemisphere. This region recognizes words that look alike, such as ZOO and zoo, but fails miserably on conventional associations like GET and get. It would appear that the right hemisphere, in most right-handers, only applies generic visual mechanisms of size and position invariance to the written word. Only the left letterbox area has internalized the cultural practices unique to reading." My takeaway is that if dyslexic readers show higher activation in the right hemisphere when reading ( which is shown on fMRI studies), then they must be taught the concept of letter invariance and shown many examples of acceptable exemplars so that they can begin to read with increased fluency and automaticity. What are your thoughts on this scientific evidence?

Hi Tim,
This is a very interesting blog post.
John Walker's response to your post mentioned that in the UK, the view is that the teaching of both letter names and sounds imposes too great a cognitive load in the beginning stages of learning to read and write, which particularly affects those from low SES backgrounds. If this is true, would this not affect students from the US too?
Many thanks,
Mat

Curious about your thoughts on teaching letter names first given a population of students with varying cognitive disabilities who have limited knowledge of letter names and are more likely to experience confusion if names/sounds are presented together? The few evidence-based reading programs for these students seem to favor teaching letter sounds initially, since this approach allows students to engage in blending and decoding activities sooner. Curious if you see the logic here given the student profile and a typically longer trajectory in learning to read. Thank you!

Teach letter names and sounds along with writing. Lower case sequence: c, o, a, d, g, q, f, s, e, i, j, l, t, h, b, k, r, n, m, p, u, v, w, x, y, z Have them say the sound and name as they are forming the letter "k, k, k, k, k, c (see)", then "k, k, k, k, k, oooooo (short o sound)", then "k, k, k, k, oooo, aaa (short a), and so on. c through e begin with k,k,k. i and j begin with i,i,i. l through k begin with l,l,l,. r through p begin with r,r,r. u stands alone. v through y begin with |v|. z stands alone.
Also with in the day chant the alphabet by making the sound-sound-name. |a| |a| a, and also by saying the name-name-sound a a |a|. Let them know that they will hear the sound and then write the letter when writing, and see the letter and need to know the sound when reading.
No matter what, in a lesson begin and end by talking about the tasks of reading and writing. They need to connect what they are doing to the ultimate goal of being able to read and write fluently. No skills are taught in true isolation. It might be isolation slightly removed from authentic print but it needs to be connected. From the child's point of view- "I am reading and I don't know this word. Now I am learning something I needed to know in order to be able to read. Now I am using what I learned to read smoothly. Now I am applying what I learned to new similar situations in my reading." In other words present young children with the task of reading early and build up knowledge. The more you do something, the better you get at it. The more you read, the better you get at it. The more you write, the better you get at it.

I forgot to say that they would say the letter name as they complete each letter.
Have them say the sound and name as they are forming the letter "k, k, k, k, k, c (see)", then "k, k, k, k, k, oooooo (short o sound) o", then "k, k, k, k, oooo, aaa (short a) a, k,k,k,k,oooo d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d (dee) and so on.

From my perspective, it makes sense to teach young children the letter names and their corresponding sounds together. I think it also makes sense to teach the letters in alphabetical order, rather than starting with the most commonly used consonants whose sounds can be easily sustained (s, f, m). This merely points to a lazy teacher. I've also read online that teaching the letters in alphabetical order will cause children to revert back to the letter name rather than the sound it makes. I don't believe this is true either. One, vowels have two sounds (one for the letter name and one for the short vowel sound) and two, the point of phonics instruction is specifically to teach children the sound associated with each letter. Go figure.

Jennifer--

You are correct that you can successfully teach the alphabet, in alphabetical order with no accompanying damage to decoding ability. However, it is important to remember the purpose in teaching the letters and sounds is to facilitate reading and writing (not to ensure that children learn the lyrics to the ABC song). By teaching letters out of order, you can involve children in reading earlier than you can the other way. I'd argue for keeping the emphasis on the reading purpose rather than on any teacher's sense of orderliness and tradition.

tim

Is there and research indicating that phonics instruction for the general student population should incorporate teaching students diacritical marks/coding? I realize this is a necessary scaffold for some dyslexic students, but I can't find any research about general education students. I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

"It's interesting that people who are saying that we should follow brain science ignore data when it comes to practical issues. I'd rather follow the empirical data any day than untested theories and indirect inferences."

tim

I used to work for a private education business in Singapore for 10 years in 2007 to 2017. They had, at the time, over 20 locations in Singapore alone and over 10,000+ students. Now they have over 100 locations globally and somewhere close to 100,000 students. So, I think that should provide enough data. Their program was developed by Dr Tony Earnshaw and Child Psychologist Annabelle Seargeant. From what I recall, they also ran a 4 year study for the Singapore government on their approach with very high success rates.

They are using sound-first approach with 10's of thousands of successes over the 20+ years in education. Currently, I work in Northern communities and implement the same strategies as I learned with them. And with the same success.

What do you think?
Maybe they would be willing to help collect data on students in order to make the data more clear.