Using Visual Mnemonics to Boost Early Literacy — And a Free Tool to Make it Happen
Why Do Letters Make the Sounds They Do?
Why does the letter "s" make the sound /s/? Why does the letter "L" make the sound /l/? These are tough questions that kids often ask, and the truth is, there is no reason. As in any language, the relationship between letters and sounds is entirely arbitrary. This is why students must memorize multiple arbitrary correspondences between letters and their sounds, a task known in psychology as Paired-Associate Learning (PAL).
Teaching students to navigate the English code—decoding for reading and encoding for writing—requires creative strategies to help them overcome the challenge of these arbitrary letter/sound relationships.
The Role of Repetition… and Its Limitations
For many instructors, the default solution for a struggling student is repetition. While repetition eventually works, there is a better, more engaging way to teach students letter/sound relationships: visual mnemonics.
Visual Mnemonics: Cognitive Super Glue
Visual mnemonics serve as powerful tools for helping students remember the connection between a letter’s shape and its corresponding sound. A visual mnemonic is like “cognitive super glue,” quickly pairing “sounds” and “spellings” together with a lasting bond.
The National Reading Panel (2000) supports the use of mnemonics for teaching letter-sound relationships. A study by Ehri, Deffner, and Wilce (1984) demonstrated that children taught with letters drawn as familiar objects—for example, "h" as a house—learned letter sounds better than those taught through rote memorization. The motivational value of these visual aids, especially when incorporated into fun activities and games, makes the process both efficient and enjoyable for young learners.
Finding the Best Mnemonics
To ensure young students can easily connect the mnemonic to its corresponding letter, it is imperative that each mnemonic looks like the letter it represents. For example:
The letter “F” is represented as a “Flag.”
The letter “L” is represented as a “Laptop.”
The letter “s” is represented as a “saxophone.”
/f/ as in Flag
/l/ as in Laptop
/s/ as in saxophone
(Images above are from the CAPIT Reading Curriculum)
These mnemonics create an objective association between the letter’s shape and its sound, alleviating the burden of memorization for students. Unlike a generic snake that doesn’t always resemble the letter “s,” a saxophone has a shape that aligns naturally with the letter’s curves. Even when students are unfamiliar with the object—like a saxophone—their minds quickly learn new vocabulary, making the mnemonic even more memorable.
Better Than Letter Names!
Although letter names are important for skills like spelling and using dictionaries, they can confuse beginner readers when learning letter sounds. For instance, a child might struggle to associate the letter “c” with the sound /k/ because they are stuck on the name “see.” Similarly, the names “double-you” and “why” might lead to errors when children try to produce the correct sounds. Visual mnemonics avoid this confusion by focusing and emphasizing the “phoneme” using a real word represented by a real-life object (saxophone, laptop, etc.), avoiding confusion all too common in preschool and kindergarten classrooms.
Supporting Equity in Learning
While most students eventually overcome letter-name confusion, some do not—and that’s why it’s important to focus exclusively on letter sounds when first teaching phonics. By avoiding potential confusion with letter names, teachers can ensure that no student is left behind, creating a learning experience grounded in equity and fairness.
Empowering Teachers
Many kindergarten and first-grade teachers enter the classroom without sufficient phonics training. Using visual mnemonics can also help teachers avoid mixing letter names and sounds, enabling them to provide clear, consistent instruction.
Conclusion
Teaching letter names is essential, but it should happen outside of phonics instruction. Instead, pairing letter sounds with visual mnemonics transforms the learning process into an engaging and effective journey for students and teachers alike. CAPIT’s carefully designed mnemonics ensure that every student can build a strong foundation in reading.
To learn more about the use of visual mnemonics, click here.
The CAPIT Sound Challenge
We at CAPIT are obsessed with visual mnemonics and the effects they have on student learning. That’s why we launched the CAPIT Sound Challenge, a free tool that can ensure all students quickly master their understanding of letter shapes and sounds—and do so with joy and excitement! The CAPIT Sound Challenge is a free, nationwide competition that will help your students crack the alphabetic code in a fun, interactive way.
Students and teachers can compete with other classrooms from across the country and see their progress on our national leaderboard. Parents can also join to support their kids at home to help them master the building blocks necessary for reading success.
The current CAPIT Sound Challenge will run from December 4 to December 31. We’ll announce the winner on January 6. Click here to join today!
About CAPIT
Our name, CAPIT, reflects our educational philosophy: Concept And Personality Integration Technique. This means transforming abstract phonemes into concrete, memorable personalities. By turning letters into meaningful objects—like saxophones and laptops—we help students internalize their sounds quickly and effectively. In fact, with CAPIT’s unique Visual Mnemonics, most 4-year-old preschool students master letter sounds within three months and begin blending CVC words shortly thereafter—before entering kindergarten. To learn more about our innovative approach to literacy instruction, click here.
About the Author
Eyal Rav-Noy is the Co-Founder of CAPIT Learning and the author of the CAPIT Reading Curriculum, a digital evidence-based tool that enables educators of beginner and struggling readers to create confident, lifelong readers. Eyal lives in Los Angeles with his wife, five children, and their dog Luna, and enjoys running all over Los Angeles as he prepares for the next marathon.