Alphabet 101
The alphabet is a fundamental building block of the English language and consists of 26 letters. Your student will start to learn how to differentiate the vowels from consonants and when they should use capital letters instead of lowercase letters. To help you help your child learn the alphabet, we’ve identified some important concepts.
Vowels
The alphabet contains 5 letters that are always used as vowels: A, E, I, O, and U. Sometimes, Y is also used as a vowel. A letter is considered a vowel if it has an open sound, meaning you can say the letter without closing your mouth or touching your tongue to the roof of your mouth, your teeth, or your lips.
Consonants
Every other letter in the alphabet that is not a vowel is considered a consonant. Consonants are often combined with a vowel to help form different syllables, which then lead to forming entire words.
Alphabet Sequence
The alphabet starts with the vowel A and ends on the consonant Z: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Your child will most likely learn how to recognize, trace, and sound out the alphabet in this same order, along with learning the alphabet song.
Capital and Lowercase Letters
All letters in the alphabet can be written as a capital letter or a lowercase letter. For example, a capital A can also be written as a lowercase a, and a capital B can be written as a lowercase b. If you feel your child is ready to learn when to use one or the other, you can check out our
Pronoun page.
Once your child has mastered the entire alphabet from A to Z, you can help them get ahead by practicing how to put these letters together to
spell words.
