Letshp.htm/14NOV2001

Letter Shapes

You can use letters cut from a printout of the cut letters web page. The first step is to give the pupil one of the cut out letter cards and see if he can find that shape among other letters, from the following card Click here for a copy of this card. :

i	g	c	w	l	x
m	s	f	o	e	d

Give him a W and see if he can find it among the 12 letters, then an s, an x, an i, and so on. If he can do this, and he is talking, he is ready to start learning to read. If he is 3 and not talking, teaching him to read by this method is a form of speech therapy and can help him to learn to talk at the same time. The programme can also correct speech in order to improve spelling, saying THINK instead of FINK, for instance. The sooner they start, the better. By school age, all children are ready, if you start with letters and sounds. It is trying to make them start with whole words, books, pictures, that makes them appear to be "not ready".