Alphabet

The alphabet

English is written with twenty-six letters. Every word you will ever read is built out of them.

Each letter has two shapes: a big one, called a capital letter, and a small one. A and a are the same letter.

A sentence begins with a capital letter, and so does a person's name, a country and a day of the week.

Five of the letters are vowels: a, e, i, o and u. Every English word has at least one vowel in it.

The other twenty-one letters are consonants.

The letter y does both jobs. It is a consonant in the word yes, and a vowel in the word happy.

The letters always come in this order. It is the order a dictionary is written in, and the order a list of names is put in.

The twenty-six letters

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Vocabulary

appleballcatdogeggfishgirlhaticejamkiteleafmoonnoseorangepenqueenrainsuntreeumbrellavanwaterboxyellowzoo