The history of the alphabet is briefly reviewed to provide background on the controversy about beginning handwriting instruction and the relative difficulty of major instructional methods (Roman capitals, ball-stick manuscript, and chancery cursive). The author suggests that a simplified version of chancery cursive can be used for beginners. (CL)

This article suggests 11 projects for prekindergarten and kindergarten children (1) to teach letter recognition; (2) to develop eye-hand coordination; and (3) to help children understand weather; and (4) to provide art and drama activities on Thanksgiving themes. (PP)

This paper examines the need for a transcription system that allows the symbolization of nonnormal articulations. The paper then describes transcription systems proposed by clinical phoneticians and speech pathologists, especially PRDS (phonetic representation of disordered speech) symbols and extensions of the International Phonetic Alphabet.…

Middle and secondary school students who continue to display reversal problems despite intervention should be taught to compensate. Compensation can be based on the student's common error problems. (CL)

A four-step instructional procedure to assist the learning disabled child to distinguish the distinctive features of letters is described. The procedure involves distinguishing the lower case "b" via a fading out technique from its upper case counterpart "B." The letter directionality can be cued so that the "b-d" distinction is readily apparent.…

Describes two manual aids used in educating deaf children in Peking: the Chinese finger alphabet for teaching Chinese characters, and a new device being experimented with called the Chinese finger syllabary. Sample illustrations are given for both, as well as for the Pinyin finger alphabet. (PJM)

In this art activity elementary students are asked to design their own alphabet, not just by streamlining the letters they regularly use, but by inventing new letters. (RM)

"Alpha-Pets" are the focal point of an integrated, multidisciplinary curriculum. Each pet is featured for a week in a vocabulary-rich story and introduces related activities beginning with the featured letter, such as the four food groups during Freddie Fish's week or universe during Ulysses Unicorn's week. (MT)

In a whole-language kindergarten, children learn language skills in a social context. Suggestions on how to develop activities that focus on a different letter of the alphabet each week are offered. These activities tie together all areas of the curriculum. (DF)

Outlines a game which requires students to identify and use letters of the Latin alphabet. The game consists of three steps in that: (1) students must correctly identify letters; (2) after "winning" a letter, groups of students use them to build words; and (3) from the words, students add other words to construct complete sentences. (PJM)

Offers guidelines for helping children produce their own alphabet books. (FL)

This paper examines the importance of handwriting instruction, through discussion of four issues: (1) whether handwriting should be taught directly outside other writing contexts; (2) slanted versus traditional manuscript alphabets; (3) use of a beginner's pencil and wide lined paper; and (4) the use of self-regulation procedures within the…

A strategy developed in Bulgaria for instruction in the Russian alphabet is described and discussed, and instructional materials are listed. The technique, based on suggestopedic methods, teaches letters not separately but as parts of words and sentences, and no comparisons are made with the Latin alphabet. (MSE)

Discusses why mastering pronunciation in a second language is difficult and gives some errors common to students learning English as a second language. Describes some useful guidelines and techniques for pronunciation instruction. (EKN)

The manual alphabet was used as an adjunct to a linguistic reading system to achieve the following goals with primary grade learning disabled children: (1) ensure attention, (2) reinforce the learning of phonemes, (3) guide the student if he had difficulties, (4) introduce prefixes and suffixes, and (5) provide the child with an independent…