In the progression of letter recognition, after students can match letters with pictures, which step should be taught next?

• A. Move on to uppercase-lowercase with pictures
• B. Instruct students in matching the letters without the pictures
• C. Focus on oral naming only
• D. Practice handwriting

Answer: (B)

The key idea is moving from using concrete cues to recognizing letters as independent symbols. After students can match letters with pictures, the next step is for them to match the letters by themselves, without the pictures. This strengthens the ability to identify letter forms in isolation, which is essential for reading because letters appear on their own and in words without any pictorial cue. It also sets up smoother progress to distinguishing uppercase and lowercase and eventually to handwriting, since the learner now truly recognizes the letter shapes rather than relying on pictures. Jumping ahead to uppercase-lowercase with pictures still depends on the pictures for recognition, focusing on naming alone skips solid symbol recognition, and diving into handwriting before solid isolated recognition can make the learning sequence harder to generalize.