The Letter O
Alphabet Games
The letter O appears in many words that are familiar to children, words like “dog”, “hot”, “stop”, and “phone”. O is the fifteenth letter of the alphabet and a vowel. In frequency of use charts, O takes fourth place after E, T, and A. We English speakers use O a lot! Because of its simple, round shape, O is easy to identify and fun to write. It is a great early letter for children to learn, especially when they’re also learning to use three-line handwriting paper. Writing uppercase and lowercase Os will help students practice using the center and top lines to guide their writing. Children can use alphabet games to learn to recognize the letter O and other letters of the alphabet. As they develop reading fluency, they will learn about the short O sound in “stop” and “hot” and the long O sound in “cone” and “go”. As students progress in reading and spelling fluency they will learn vowel combinations for O that make even more sounds: “oo” in “too”, “oa” in “oat”, “oi” in “coin”, and “ou” in “house”. Have fun with O in your classroom or home. Invite your preschool or Kindergarten students to search for Os on signs, bulletin boards and in books. In your classroom declare one day O day and see how many Os each student can count!
