Letter I
Preschool · 3–5Color the big letter I, with Ice cream, igloo and insect to name as you go. Lowercase i is drawn line first, dot second, and doing it the other way round leaves a floating dot with a line placed hopefully underneath. Capital I needs its top and bottom bars, or it is indistinguishable from a lowercase l and very close to the numeral 1 — three shapes that cause real trouble when they look alike. Filling a letter in at this size does something tracing does not: the child's eye follows the whole outline slowly, so the shape registers before a pencil ever has to reproduce it. Say the sound rather than the letter name while you color — the sound is what reading actually needs. Print it on A4 or US Letter, or color it online with tap-to-fill.
A letter with a dot
Lowercase i is two marks made in the right order: the line first, top to bottom, then the dot. Doing the dot first is astonishingly common and produces a floating dot with a line placed hopefully underneath it. It is worth insisting on the order, because the same habit — body first, detail second — applies to j, t and f as well.
Capital I is a plain vertical line, and that causes a different problem: it is identical to lowercase l and very close to the numeral 1. A child who writes I am with a lowercase l has made a sensible mistake. Handwriting fonts add the top and bottom bars to the capital for exactly this reason, and it is worth teaching that version.
Short I and long I
Short I is the sound in insect, igloo and in — a small, quick vowel that children often struggle to distinguish from short E. Long I says the letter's name, as in ice cream, ice and island. Because the short version is so easily confused by ear, it is worth over-articulating it when you model words: iii-nsect, iii-gloo.
Frequently asked questions
- Should the dot go on before or after the line?
- After. The line is the letter; the dot is a finishing mark. Establishing that order with i carries straight over to j, and to crossing t and f, which keeps letter shapes consistent as writing speeds up.
- How do I stop I, l and 1 getting confused?
- Teach capital I with its top and bottom bars, keep lowercase l as a plain tall line, and give the numeral 1 its little upward flag. Three visibly different shapes solve a problem that no amount of explanation will.