Does your child seem to have memory problems when it comes to learning letter names and sounds?
Updated: 7 days ago
It isn’t that your child has a bad memory in general.
They remember perfectly well
the great time they had at the birthday party last week…
what they ate for dinner…
all about the movie they watched…
how to do skills they’ve learned…
the fact that you promised to give them a treat after they cleaned their room…
All kinds of things.
Your child can even sing the alphabet song from beginning to end...
but if you point to a letter they cannot remember the name of that particular letter.
You have been practicing with flash cards for months and they still do not know all 26 letters consistently.
Maybe they know the letter today, but tomorrow they've forgotten it again.
Sometimes they might remember the letter name but have no idea what sound it makes.
If this sounds familiar, you're probably feeling frustrated, worried, and even embarrassed.
It can seem like every other child in the class is learning to read with ease while your child is making very little progress.
You may feel like you are working very hard to help them and you may wonder if you're doing something wrong.
You are not alone. These problems are common for struggling readers. Your child is struggling with a certain type of memory: Rote Memory
Rote memory is memorizing random facts that may seem boring and uninteresting.
Many things must be memorized by rote:
names of numbers and letters
Days of the week and months of the year,
phone numbers,
dates in history and
math facts….
All these and more are memorized by rote memory.
Even though it is difficult and requires work it is important because alphabet knowledge is one of the biggest predictors of reading success.
The good news is that your child can and will be able to learn their letter names and sounds.
Once they truly know their letters and the sounds they represent, reading becomes much more manageable.
As their reading improves, so does their confidence.
School becomes less frustrating and much more enjoyable.
In this article, I'll share three strategies that help my students remember letter names and sounds more effectively.
These are the same kinds of techniques I use in my one-on-one online tutoring sessions with children who have dyslexia and other reading difficulties.
Make sure to read to the end where I share the secret ingredient that helps all this work.
Ready? Let's get started.
Strategy 1: Go Beyond Flash Cards, slow down & Really Get to Know Each Letter
Many families spend months reviewing flash cards every day. While repetition is important, simply looking at a letter and naming it often isn't enough for children with dyslexia.
Instead, we slow down and become detectives.
We study and analyze each letter from every possible angle.
We talk about:
How the sound is made with the mouth.
Whether the sound is voiced or unvoiced.
What the tongue, lips, and teeth are doing.
Whether the air is stopped or flows freely.
Which other letter is formed the same way in the mouth.
Which other letters or sounds might be causing confusion.
Rather than ignoring mistakes, we bring them into the light and examine them together.
Extra tidbit of info:
I am not a speech language pathologist but often doing this type of work with students helps them with some of the minor speech issues they might have. For example many students are making an /f/ sound instead of /th/ and this is cleared up when we talk about how you must stick out your tongue to make the /th/ sound.
Another example of how slowing down to study each letter helps:
one student believed the letter Y made the /w/ sound. When you think about the word “why”, that misunderstanding actually makes a lot of sense! We had to spend some time talking about the letter y and the sound it makes and the words that begin with y. We even learn some history about the letter y and how it is both a vowel and consonant and that it can change places with the letter i. Letter y is almost like a character in a story and it becomes more interesting and therefore easier to remember.
On a separate day we learn about the letter w which actually does make that /w/ sound.
Most people know that many students confuse b and d, but people don’t usually realize that a large number of my students also mix up many other parts of the alphabet.
Most of my students are completely confused about the middle part of the alphabet - L, M, N, O, and P. This is because that part of the alphabet is sung or spoken so quickly. It is usually not pronounced clearly and students do not have a clear understanding of what is being said.
Funny story:
When I was about 5 years old I remember a child in the playground yelling LMNOP! As they jumped off the swing. I had no idea what they had said - I had never heard that
word and I asked my mom if “LMNOP” was a bad word!
One of my students, Anna, seemed to know the alphabet because she could sing the song perfectly. I soon discovered during our one-on-one lessons, however, that she didn't really know several individual letters. She especially needed help telling M and N apart. Once we slowed down and carefully explored each letter, everything began to make much more sense.
I helped her to remember by using memorable hooks to make learning stick.
For example:
M has two humps—it’s like when we enjoy a delicious muffin and say "mmm-mmm-mmm." It's so good we want two muffins!
These kinds of meaningful connections give the brain something interesting to remember instead of relying on rote memorization alone.
Strategy 2: Use True Multisensory Instruction
One of the things that can help children to remember letters and sounds is to use explicit, multisensory instruction. This can include drawing letters in sand or shaving cream which is fun but isn’t really what reading specialists are talking about when they say multisensory instruction.
When reading specialists talk about multisensory instruction, we're talking about something much more powerful.
We want the child to:
See the letter.
Say the sound.
Hear themselves saying it.
Feel how their mouth forms the sound.
Write the letter correctly.
All at the same time.
Doing the writing part in sand, big in the air, or with shaving cream would make it even more amazing because it’s fun.
This approach is often called Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Tactile (VAKT) instruction.
The more parts of the brain involved in learning, the more likely the information is to stick.
Proper handwriting is surprisingly important and helpful for children learning letters.
In recent years handwriting has been neglected in schools and this is a big mistake.
In my 1:1 tutoring sessions most students have white boards with handwriting lines so that we can practice together. We practice forming all the letters.
This is especially helpful with b and d confusion.
Because the b and d are formed completely differently, handwriting helps the brain to distinguish them even though they look so similar.
The lowercase b begins with a tall line, without lifting the pencil, you trace back up before making the bump.
The lowercase d begins like a c. Then the pencil travels upward all the way to the top line before tracing back down.
These two movements feel completely different in the hand and that muscle memory helps the brain make connections that help it stick.
This way children aren't just depending on visual memory - which is often poor—they're also developing muscle memory and rich connections in the brain.
If a student is ready, I introduce cursive because cursive naturally reinforces correct letter formation.
If they're not ready yet, we focus on building strong print handwriting first.
Either way, careful letter formation becomes another tool for remembering and distinguishing letters.
And writing the letters while also naming and sounding helps it all get glued together in the brain - the muscle memory reinforcing the visual and auditory memory.
Strategy 3: Turn Practice Into Hands-On activities or Games
Children learn best when they're actively involved.
If you can make it a game of some sort it can make everything more fun.
Even something as simple as putting out a game board and then using the same flash cards, taking turns, and after each turn rolling a dice and moving around the board makes learning more fun. Especially if they win!
My beginning students use magnetic letters.
Before each lesson, I ask them to place all of their letters into alphabetical order.
This simple activity reveals so much. Often students finish arranging the alphabet only to discover they still have one or more letters sitting off to the side. Suddenly they realize they've forgotten a letter entirely and have to figure out where it belongs.
This even happens to my older students.
One student repeatedly forgot to include the letter J—It was funny and we laughed together as we realized that his name started with J but he was leaving it out of the alphabet! This student did know the letter and its sound but did not remember where it belonged in alphabetical order.
During our online lessons, we use magnetic letters in lots of different ways.
I might ask:
"Which letter makes the /m/ sound?"
"What letter comes after M?"
"What letter comes before T?"
We are practicing much more than letter names. We're also strengthening concepts like before, after, sequencing, and careful attention.
Parents can easily do the same activities at home.
One of my favorite games is simply Memory (also called Concentration).
Rather than using the entire alphabet, choose just a few letters your child is confusing.
You can use colored cardstock or index cards to make two copies of each letter and place them upside down.
The important thing is that every time someone flips over a card, they must say both the letter name and its sound.
The game naturally builds concentration, memory, and repeated exposure in a fun way. Most children also benefit from learning how to play memory strategically—thinking about remembering where the cards are instead of simply turning over random cards each turn.
Students who are struggling with rote memory need to work on improving memory skills. Memory is like a muscle and it can be improved with some work. And this game helps work that memory muscle.
The secret ingredient that helps this all work: Learning requires focused attention.
One of the biggest obstacles to learning all the letter names and sounds isn't intelligence—it's attention.
Many children who struggle with reading also struggle to focus their attention on exactly what they're trying to learn. It's not that they aren't paying attention to anything. Often they're paying attention to everything.
But learning requires focused attention.
You cannot learn anything that you haven’t paid attention to.
It is normal for attention to wander. It happens to us all. People with good executive functioning skills know how to bring their attention back to what matters in the moment.
During my tutoring sessions, we actually practice bringing attention back whenever it wanders. This is an executive functioning skill that helps children in every subject, not just reading.
One advantage of one-on-one tutoring is that your child gets individual attention and the teacher can notice when their attention seems to be somewhere besides what we are trying to learn. What I like to do is to point out what is happening and say it out loud. “It looks like you are paying attention to that toy instead of what we are learning right now. Can you bring your attention back to what we are talking about?”
Share time
By the way I leave a few minutes at the end of my lessons for “share time” in case students want to share things with me. That way if they start to tell me a story or something I can tell them that I do want to hear it “but keep it for “share time” please. Right now what do we need to be paying attention to?”
Often turning review into a game can do wonders in keeping the attention. I think it is a good idea to do some “boring” review such as flash cards but not too long, and then get more review on the same skill by playing a game.
I've seen many children who seemed hopelessly behind make wonderful progress once they received individualized instruction that matched the way they learn.
If your child is struggling to remember letter names and sounds, don't assume they have a poor memory or that you've somehow failed them.
Children with dyslexia often need more repetition than others and also different instruction.
They benefit from detailed explanations, multisensory instruction, meaningful memory hooks, lots of review, and engaging practice that strengthens both memory and attention.
With the right support,
Those confusing letters begin to make sense.
Reading becomes less stressful,
confidence grows, and
school becomes a place where your child can experience success instead of frustration.
If you suspect your child is having a harder time learning to read than is typical you need my free guide.
My free guide, Is My Child on Track? A Parent's guide to Reading Development, will help you understand where your child is on their reading journey.
Inside, you’ll learn:
What reading skills are typically expected at different ages and stages
What’s normal as your child develops as a reader
What red flags may indicate that your child is struggling and could benefit from additional support
How to get a better sense of whether your child is progressing as expected—or may need some extra help
to get a clearer picture of whether your child's reading ability is on track.
When your child struggles to learn letter names and sounds that is a red flag but you are on top of this and you can put in place strategies that will be able to remedy the problem. You will want to stay aware of what the milestones are to make sure your child is making appropriate progress. I hope that this blog has given you a few ideas of things that you can do that will help.
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