5 Tricky Lowercase Letters
You’ve probably noticed that some lowercase letters look different when they are handwritten than when they are typewritten. For example, take a look at lowercase letters A and G below.
Lowercase letters Q, T, and Y can be tricky for beginning readers, too.
Fortunately, hands-on activities are an easy way to help your child become familiar with the different forms of these letters.
Fun Practice for Tricky Lowercase Letters!
Tricky Lowercase Letter A
A typewritten lowercase A looks very different than a handwritten lowercase A. Help your child learn to recognize three different styles of this tricky letter.
Tricky Lowercase Letter G
A handwritten lowercase G has an open loop or “fishtail,” while many typewritten forms have a closed loop. These activities will help your child recognize both!
Tricky Lowercase Letter Q
Depending on whether it is handwritten or typewritten, lowercase Q can have a descender with a curvy or straight tail…or no tail at all! That’s extra tricky!
Tricky Lowercase Letter T
Lowercase letter T can also be written different ways. Most handwritten forms have a straight stick, while most typewritten forms have a bit of a curl at the bottom.
Tricky Lowercase Letter Y
A typewritten Y is usually straight. A handwritten Y can be either straight or curvy. Can your child recognize all three?
Recognizing the various forms of lowercase A, G, Q, T, and Y is part of letter knowledge, one of the Big Five Skills that help kids prepare for learning to read.
Are you wondering if your child is ready for formal reading instruction? Download this checklist to measure your child’s reading readiness.
Let me know in the comments below if your child enjoyed these letter recognition activities!
Asif
says:it is awesome n thanks a lot to have it for me too
Stacey
says:Thank you so much for this resource! I wish I had this when my oldest was learning to read because these letters definitely were confusing when they show up differently in every book! Now I can use this with my next two readers! We love All About Reading and my oldest has used it from the beginning and is about to start Level 4! Thanks for such a great resource!!!
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceYou’re so welcome, Stacey! I’m sorry our oldest child had trouble with these letters; so many students do. Hopefully this will help your younger children have confidence with different fonts in different books!
dawn
says:Just wanted to say thank you for all the help, my son and nephew are dyslexics and these have helped tremendously
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceI’m glad to hear these have helped, Dawn! Thank you for letting us know. ?
Asma
says:Thank you for this! Really helpful!
Marissa Stewart
says:I love the formula you’ve created for the kiddos to learn – and have fun doing it!!
Jessica
says:My son has trouble with these letters. He always says “mommy that’s not how we write letter ____” thank you for this!
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceYou’re welcome, Jessica. A lot of children have trouble with the differing fonts for these letters. Hopefully this will clear it up for your son.
Jill
says:What a great idea! This will help my kiddos recognize letters in any format now.
Jennifer
says:Love this!
Sonja Rapson
says:I love the simplicity of this program. The kids love the short lessons and it feels like play. Amazed at the effectiveness.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceIt sounds like the program is working out so well for you, Sonja! That’s wonderful.
Brandy J. Myers
says:As we are just starting out my son is really struggling with the lowercase a and being able to find it in books.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceHopefully, this helps, Brandy. The different fonts of A and other letters can be quite a problem for some kids. Let me know how it goes and if you need more help or ideas.
Sherry
says:Great ideas for my kindergarten classroom!
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceI’m glad this will be helpful for your class, Sherry! I’d love to hear if it is helpful for your students.
Dishant Shah
says:This is so helpful…..I was looking for some sensible tricks for lowercase…I was fooled around many sites…but my search ends here. ..will definitely try with my 4 yr old..thank you
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceI’m glad this was helpful for you, Dishant!
Dawn
says:Yes those tricky typewritten letters. Great ideas can’t wait to incorporate some of them into our learning.
Tiffany
says:Are there any additional activities (outside of what’s in the teacher manual in level 1) to help with b, p, d? My daughter knows the sounds when presented individually but gets confused when reading them in a word.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceTiffany,
We do have a blog post about How to Solve Letter Reversals but it is pretty much what is also in the appendix of the All About Reading 1 Teacher’s Manual.
Helping a child overcome letter reversals or confusion can take time. If your child is still pretty young and new to reading, then I recommend gentle correction each time it’s a problem. When she misreads a letter in a word, build the word with the letter tiles and have her sound it out touching each tile as she says its sound. Make yourself a note to review that word both with tiles and by rereading that page where she made the mistake. This ongoing correction and reviewing should show improvement in a few weeks although it is likely to be an occasional problem even after that.
However, if she is older and continuing to have trouble with these letters, some more focused attention may be in order. Choose one letter to focus on first (I recommend d as it is more commonly used than p or b). Spend a couple of minutes a day focused just on that letter. The tactile letters and air writing may seem a bit silly, especially with an older child, but they are effective and I highly recommend them being a large part of your daily focus on letter confusion if this is an ongoing problem. For a couple of minutes a day, do air writing of one letter, trace a tactile letter, and focus on the letter and its sound. When your daughter misreads that letter during her reading lesson, ask her to air write it as she says the sound. Then have her reread the word. If reversals have been going on for a very long time, they can take a very long time to overcome. One of my coworkers worked with her daughter for a few minutes a day for almost every school day of her 4th-grade year to overcome her reversal issues.
I hope this helps, but please let me know if you have further questions or need more information. I’d love to hear how things are going after a couple of weeks.
Ami
says:I have a child with hearing trouble and frequently mixes the short e and short I sound. She can’t seem to get them straight. Any suggestions? Or is there a blog post about that too?
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceAmi,
Struggling with short e and short i is a common issue for many people in certain regions of the US. We do have a blog post on 6 Tips to Help Distinguish Between Short I and Short E that should help. However, please let me know if you need further help or ideas for these commonly confused sounds.
Ami
says:Yes, I’m quite familiar with accents, however this is not the problem. If you have other ideas I’d love them. I’ve hit pause on moving forward with reading until I get some new ideas to try and get past this. My husband (from Cali/New Mexico) is asked often “where are you from? You don’t have any accent.” Oh, and my kids laugh everytime they hear someone from the great lakes area say “bag” because it sounds like “beg” and they say “agg” for “egg”. They get such a kick out of it and try and copy them for days.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceAmi,
Is your daughter receiving help for her hearing troubles? Her audiologist or speech therapist should be aware of her difficulties hearing the difference between short i and short e and can provide help.
However, even though the root cause is not related to an accent known for merging these sounds, the tips and helps in our 6 Tips to Help Distinguish Between Short I and Short E blog post will still be helpful. It includes printables for working on these sounds and includes a way to help make differentiating the sounds more visual and tactile. Tips 2, 4, and 6 will likely be the most helpful but work on pronouncing for spelling and making sure she is saying the sounds correctly before spelling as well.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceYou’re welcome, Gerline.
Gerline
says:Thank you for the great ideas and advice on these letters. All the other work you do is great too!
Heather Turner
says:Wow,I love these! Such an amazing free resource!
Melody Greway
says:Thank you so much for such great printables! My kids really enjoy your curriculum activities.
Sara Romanski
says:I will have to give these a try for my youngest who is just now beginning letter recognition.
Nyssa
says:These worksheets are nice and colorful. My daughter was drawn to the activities because of the colorful layout. These worksheets helped her identify the different font styles of letters.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceThank you, Nyssa! I’m very happy to hear that your daughter was drawn to these and that they were helpful.
Melanie williams
says:Thank you for sharing your wisdom so freely! I tell anyone that asks or shares about a struggling reader that AAR is by far the best. I am about to go through it again with my fourth child and I’m very excited for her ?
Kristi
says:These activities look like they’d help my beginning reader a lot!
Kim
says:This has been fun and helpful for my son.
Colleen
says:So, so helpful! Thank you!
Dawn
says:Thank-You so much for the great ? dead and download sheets these will be very useful.
Katrina Angele
says:My son is just learning to read this year and I’ve notice how he can get confused when the letters look different than what he is used to.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceKatrina,
Yes, the different fonts and how letters look in them can be an unexpected roadblock. As proficient adult readers, we don’t think about how a g might look different than the last g we saw. But for new readers, how are they supposed to know that the two very different forms aren’t supposed to be two different letters?
I hope your son finds these activities helpful.
Katie
says:These are tricky letters, I’ve noticed my kids trying out the different ways of writing them by copying what they see in books!
Delina
says:So true! They are tricky! Thank you!!
Ashley c
says:Love this! These are tricky letters and they could definitely use a little extra time