Alphabetical order

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fatbananas
Posts: 1411
Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:03 pm

Alphabetical order

Post by fatbananas »

I've never seen anyone post this, so I'm wondering if this is the right course of action, but would it be worth DC to learn the position of each letter of the alphabet (ie A is 1st, B is 2nd, C is 3rd etc) for questions where you have to know which word would be 5th or middle or whatever, in a group of words?

One of the grammar schools we would be looking at is Tiffin, where speed is of the essence, and I thought it would be quicker to learn it by rote than write out the whole alphabet.

Thank you :)
Seize the day ... before it seizes you.
semb
Posts: 123
Joined: Sun Feb 03, 2013 10:41 pm

Re: Alphabetical order

Post by semb »

I thought about this. It seems a bit onerous to learn the position of every letter, although I agree you wouldn't want to be writing the whole alaphabet out in the exam. I thought we'd learn the position of a number of the letters at various points of the alphabet rather than the whole lot, e.g. A = 1, H = 8, M = 13, R = 18, W = 23. This would help by giving DD a reference point to do those types of questions a bit quicker. For example, if you need to find the 10th letter of alphabet and you know H is 8th then you just need to count on by 2 to get J.

Just a thought!
Tinkers
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Location: Reading

Re: Alphabetical order

Post by Tinkers »

T stands for 20 was a good one.
patricia
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Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:07 pm

Re: Alphabetical order

Post by patricia »

Copied from an old post of mine...

It is a good idea to play alphabet games with the children, in order to become familar with the position of letters.

I have some plastic letters which I throw to the children one at a time, in random order but in quick succession, they have to make up the alphabet, laid out in an arc. They have to think quickly as to where in the arc the letter goes.

To make it fun [and to amaze :wink: their parents at the end of the session ] I teach...

A = 1
E = 5
M = 13 [26 letters, 13 = M for Middle]
T = 20 [ T for Twenty]
Z = 26 [ you would be surprised how many variations I get for the amount of letters in the alphabet!]

You can then ask questions..

What is the 6th letter of the alphabet = 1 after the 5 [E] = F
What is the 19th letter of the alphabet = 1 before 20 [T] = S
Add together the position numbers of E and N and give your answer as a letter
5 + 14 = 19 = S

Patricia
fatbananas
Posts: 1411
Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 2:03 pm

Re: Alphabetical order

Post by fatbananas »

Thanks so much everyone. Really useful posts. I wonder, also, if putting the alphabet in an arc might also help with anagrams. DS not very keen on those. Sometimes the 'sentence' helps; other times not. We've tried putting them in a circle and that helps sometimes. Perhaps putting them in an arc will get him to look at the letters differently. Who knows!!
Seize the day ... before it seizes you.
cocoa0101
Posts: 134
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2010 12:35 pm
Location: reading

Re: Alphabetical order

Post by cocoa0101 »

Hi

I encourage the children to label the alphabet just as Patricia has pointed out above. So any alphabet question and the first thing they do is mark letters e, m, v and z. This helps enormously. For sticky anagrams, I ask them to put the letters in a circle with any of the vowels in the middle, pick a letter they think the word might begin with and continue with that, always bearing in mind the clue in the question. Many newspapers have this sort of puzzle in the daily papers and you have to make up as many words as possible using the letters on display. A great way to practice and make it fun as well.
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