The Letter I
Alphabet Games
The letter I is a word all by itself — and an important letter to a lot of kids! It’s also a letter that appears in two forms as a capital. In some fonts a capital I is just like a lowercase L. In other fonts, a capital I has bars on top and bottom (I). As children learn their ABCs, they’ll learn the two forms of the capital I and the lowercase i as well. Playing letter games will help them learn to recognize each letter. I is a vowel and has a long and a short sound. The short I can be found in simple consonant-vowel-consonant words like “pig”, “bit”, and “fin”. The long I can be found in the words “like”, “kite”, “fine”, and “mine”. Working with word families can help students learn the sounds a vowel makes with other letters. For example, pig, big, fig, and jig are words in the same word family. They have a short I sound that does not change when the first letter changes, yet, each change makes a new word. Fine, mine, dine, and line are in the same word family and showcase a long I sound. Word families are great tools for language arts activities to help with letter recognition, reading, and spelling skills.
