Introducing Capital Letters
In keeping with our commitment to ensuring the Read3 program is dynamic and responsive, we are excited to announce the release of our new Module 1 Capital Letters add-on. 🎉
This collection of resources is designed to help your child learn to link capital letters to their corresponding lowercase letter.
For children who have difficulty pairing sounds with letters, we recommend capitals be introduced once lowercase letters are automatic. Introduce capitals at the end of Module 1 Step 3 when alphabetic code has been mastered. However, if your child has really struggled to learn lowercase letters, it is appropriate to leave the introduction of capital letters to the end of Module 1.
What’s included:
This new collection of resources includes:
- Easy Capital Practice Sheets
- Memory (Capitals)
- Capital Letter Linking
- Letter Line Up
- Capital Letter Display Cards
- Capital Letter Desk Mate
We recommend you supplement your current Read3 sessions with an activity from this collection and start to build new letter-sound links over time. Detailed instructions on how to use each of these resources is provided.
Are there new picture mnemonics for capital letters?
In a word, no. 😊
Let us explain the reasoning behind this a little further.
The Easy Alphabet embedded picture mnemonics were created to help build strong letter-sound links for lowercase letters as these are the letters we use most frequently when reading and writing. Once your child can confidently recognise and form lowercase letters, it’s time to link that lowercase letter to its capital.
Rather than introducing a whole new ‘character’ for the capital, your child will be able to use the lowercase letter already stored in long term memory as the link to the ‘new’ capital letter version. There is no need for an additional mnemonic, but it is important that lowercase letters are automatic so the link between the two can be made. Memory is a great game to practise building strong links.
Here are a few infographics to explain this concept.
Included in your resource collection is a new set of display cards. These feature both upper and lowercase letters and a small Easy Alphabet graphic for support. You might like to add these capital cards below your current Easy Alphabet cards or, if letter-sound links are truly automatic, replace your current cards with the capital cards as you start to introduce capital letters to your child.
We also have a capital letter desk mate that can replace your current desk mate once lowercase letters are firmly established.
Where do I find the resources?
We’ve added a link to the Module 1 content titled ‘Module 1 | Capitals’. You’ll find it at the very end below ‘Module 1 | Step 5’.
If you are working through the program step-by-step, and do not have full access to Module 1 content, these resources will appear when Module 1.3 is added to your account.
How do I introduce capitals?
Learning capital letters is not as difficult as it seems as many capitals are similar to their lowercase version.
There are 17 similar ones: C, F, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, S, T, U, V, W, X, Z. You might like to start by checking whether your child can recognise these, then focus on any that are not solid. A quick flip through the capital letter playing cards is a simple low-stress way to check this.
There are nine capitals that are truly different: a/A, b/B, d/D, e/E, g/G, h/H, q/Q, r/R, y/Y. Introducing 1-2 of these at a time (along with some familiar ones) is a great next step. The Easy Capital Practice Sheets are a fun way to get lots and lots of practice linking and forming both the upper and lower case version of each letter. Encourage your child to be as creative as possible with the colour and design element of this writing task.🎨🖍
ACARA-aligned explicit teaching
For all our lovely teachers out there who may be wondering, the explicit teaching of capital letters supports ACARA Achievement Standards AC9EFLY08 and AC9EFLY11 for foundation year. 🙂
We hope you find these resources helpful, but remember, there's no rush! Mastery of lowercase letters should always be the priority for our Read3 kids.
Happy practising!