Teaching letter names is a common feature of beginning reading programs. In spite of its ubiquity, however, its connection to beginning reading success is not as straightforward as many teachers, administrators, and curriculum authors assume.
One of the main reasons that kindergarten and first grade teachers teach their students the names of the letters is that there is a very strong correlation between letter-name knowledge at the beginning of kindergarten and reading performance at the end of second and third grade. In other words, students who enter kindergarten knowing all or most of the letter names tend to be better readers at the end of third grade than their fellow students who know few or none of the letter names. This correlation is extremely well-established and beyond dispute. However, the correlation itself doesn’t tell us whether learning the names of the letters is a direct cause of learning to read well. There is also, for instance, a very strong correlation between foot size and reading ability for people ages 5-10: In this population, the children with bigger feet are on average better readers than the children with smaller feet. But no one will ever come out and advocate that the stretch kids feet in order to improve their reading skill because in spite of the correlation between foot size and reading skill, foot is very clearly NOT the direct cause of reading ability. Rather, foot size is a kind of marker for those things which are truly the cause of improved reading, such as more schooling, more reading experience, and more reading practice.
Although not quite so obvious as the foot-size example, the effect of letter names is likewise not a direct cause itself, but rather a marker for the underlying cause. In this case, the underlying cause most likely has to do with the child’s experiences with books and language and the variety of knowledge and skills that such experiences provide.
The functional components of learning how to recognize printed words are knowledge of letter sounds, the skill of phoneme blending, and perhaps a certain kind of visual memory as well. Teaching and developing these things is directly related to improving the reading performance of beginning readers. So teaching letter names is probably a very inefficient thing to do with beginning readers, whereas teaching letter-sounds is extremely productive.
Not only that, but teaching letter names to a non-reader in kindergarten or first grade, might actually delay his acquisition of beginning reading skill. If the student has memory difficulties, adding the letter names to the list of things he is to learn ties up a valuable mental resource and slows his learning of the letter sounds. Also, the teaching of letter names to the non-reader may very well obscure the nature and logic of our writing system, namely, that letters represent sounds. This is because the relationship between letter names and letter sounds is haphazard and confusing. Some letter names have the letter sound at the beginning of the name (“bee,” “dee,” “kay”); some letter names have the letter sound at the end of the name (“ess,” “ef,” “em”) and some letter names have no connection to the letter sound (“double-u,” “aitch). Moreover, just knowing the letter names of a word doesn’t directly help a person know what the word is. The relationship between “dee-oh-gee” and the pronunciation of the word “dog” is hardly obvious.
Does this mean that we shouldn’t teach pre-school children to sing the alphabet song? No, not at all. This is a perfectly fine activity for pre-schoolers, since the job for pre-school education isn’t to teach reading directly, but to provide a variety of language experiences that are important for success in school. (It wouldn’t hurt, of course, to help pre-schoolers learn the letter sounds as well as the letter names.) My argument also doesn’t mean that letter names are not important at all. Knowing them is certainly a part of language arts knowledge that any educated person needs. They are important for communication about the spellings of words, for using the dictionary, and for other related activities. The question isn’t WHETHER to teach letter names, but rather WHEN to teach them. For students who come to school not knowing the letter names, I would strongly recommend waiting until after they had learned the letter sounds and also had learned how to read. Once they have these skills, the knowledge of letter names is generally quite easy to acquire. As I tell any audience that I speak to, I have met people young and old who knew the letter names but who couldn’t read, but I have never met anyone who could read who didn’t know the letter names.
Next post: related thoughts about teaching so-called “sight” words.
I got here because I am curious why my son’s preschool emphasizes letter sounds over letter names. I’m shocked how much writing and pre-reading is being taught to three year olds. His teacher claims her students go to K with 2nd grade and up reading level, but I don’t think that’s really necessary. As an early elementary age child I was always reading way above grade level and it was hard to find suitable books. I read Gone with the Wind in 2nd grade and Les Miserables by 6th grade.
Comment by Rayne of Terror — March 21, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
I think that it is important to teach letter sounds before letter names when students begin formal reading instruction, but for the most part, I don’t know of much benefit for beginning such instruction before students are in kindergarten. Children that age should be doing lots of imaginative play, singing songs, painting, working with clay, building with blocks, playing in the sandbox, etc. They should, of course, also have a rich language environment and be exposed to wonderful nursery rhymes, poetry, and age appropriate stories. This is really the “pre-reading” engagement that they need–not phonics per se and writing. I think it is probably a good idea to teach the alphabet song and to have children do alphabet puzzles at this age. (They should also be learning to count and can start doing puzzles with the numerals as well).
I think you’re absolutely right that it is not necessary to send students to k with 2nd grade reading levels, even if we could do that for most children. So far as I know, there is no evidence that such acceleration of formal reading instruction makes a difference in students when they are 18.
Comment by michaelbend — March 25, 2008 @ 6:15 pm