Lesson 1

1. THE ALPHABET

An alphabet is a group of letters used to form words.

• Many different alphabets are used in the world.

• The English alphabet is based on the Latin (or Roman) alphabet.

• The English alphabet is the most commonly used alphabet in the world.

• There are 26 letters in our alphabet.

• It is necessary to know the alphabet to find information and words easily.

• Information and words are usually arranged in alphabetical order

• The five vowels in our alphabet are a, e, i, o, u.

• All the other letters in the alphabet are consonants.

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

How to arrange words alphabetically

ball, apple, great, bed, above, river, actor, kitchen, break

1. Find all the words that start with an a. (apple, above, actor)

2. Now look at the second letter and see which second letter comes first in the alphabet. (above)

3. Continue with the third letter in the word until you have arranged all the letters starting with an a. (above, actor, apple)

4. When you have arranged all the words starting with an a, you start with the words starting with a b.

5. Therefore the alphabetical order of the words at the top are:

above, actor, apple, ball, bed, break, great, kitchen, river

• If two people have the same name or initials, but different surnames, look at the surnames to place them in alphabetical order. (John Brown, John Kelly, John Smith)