Why You Need to Teach Letter Names as Well as Sounds

When I started working with very young readers over twenty years ago, I was taught just to teach the sounds, and that the names would just confuse them. It made some sense: "G" usually says /g/ like "gum," but the first sound is a /j/ like in jam. Sometimes "c" hisses, but it's taught as /k/ like in "cat." And vowels? Don't get me started. So I intentionally focused on sounds with emergent readers to sidestep this confusion. I now think this was a mistake, and here's why:

Kids confuse letter names with letter sounds, and that confusion causes spelling to break down. This potential confusion needs to be addressed head-on, so kids understand from the start that the sounds letters represent are dependent on the letters around them. Or as I like to say, "vowels are shy; they need friends to say their names."

That's cute, and it should work, unless the difference between a letter's "name" and its "short" sound hasn't been clearly established.

Most kids learn the alphabet first. That’s fine. Knowing letter names is helpful and necessary. But spelling and reading don’t run on letter names—they run on sounds. And when a child tries to spell using letter names instead of the sounds they hear, they can’t connect the phonemes to the correct symbols. They end up guessing.

Take vowels. This is where things really fall apart.

Vowels are slippery. They can say their names (like the “a” in make), or they can say their sounds (like the “a” in cat). The problem? We teach the name first, and often don’t clearly teach the sound. So when kids hear “a” in cat, they might reach for “ay” or just default to writing “a” and hoping it’s right—because no one explained that the letters after the vowel change how it’s pronounced.

And that’s not intuitive. It has to be taught.

Kids need to know both. Not just the names. Not just the sounds. They need both. Because English spelling is a code. The other letters in the word—especially the consonants that follow a vowel—help us figure out whether that vowel is saying its name or its sound.

If a child doesn’t understand that distinction, they’re fundamentally confused about how English works. And when you’re confused, you guess. Guessing might get you by for a while, especially if you’re bright and can memorize a lot. But eventually, the guessing runs out. Spelling becomes a mess, reading fluency slows down, and confidence takes a hit.

So what do you do?

When your child is spelling, prompt them to say the sounds in the word, not the letter names. Ask, “What sound do you hear at the beginning?” Not “What letter does it start with?” When they write, have them map the sounds they hear to letters, not the letters they remember from a song.

And keep talking about both:

• “The name of this letter is A.”

• “One of the sounds A makes is /ă/, like in apple.”

• “Another sound is /ā/, like in cake. The E at the end is what tells us that.”

Reading and spelling both get easier when kids understand that letter names and letter sounds are different—and both matter.

That distinction might seem small. But for a struggling reader or speller, it’s the difference between guessing and understanding.