Letter 15 of 26
The letter O in braille
O is dots 1, 3 and 5.
Dots 1-3-5
Unicode ⠕ — U+2815
How to recognise it
Dots 1, 3 and 5 zigzag down the cell. o is e plus dot 3.
E, O and Z: one shape
O is E with dot 3 added; add dot 6 as well and it becomes Z.
Where O turns up in Grade 2
O is not one of the letters that stands for a whole word on its own, but it does appear inside contractions that combine it with another letter.
| Cell | Letters | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| for | one cell for “for”, whether it is a word of its own or letters inside one | |
| of | one cell for “of”, whether it is a word of its own or letters inside one | |
| ou | one cell for the letters “ou”; standing alone it is the word “out” | |
| ow | one cell for the letters “ow” | |
| con | one cell for “con” at the start of a word |
The contraction reference gives the rules for each.
Writing a capital O
Capital O is two cells: the capital sign, dot 6, then O. A word in capitals takes the sign twice, once for the whole word: “OLD” is ⠠⠠⠕⠇⠙. Capitals covers longer runs.
Easily confused with
O differs by a single dot from E, K, N, R and Z — the letters to drill it against.
Practice words
Words that start with O, one cell per letter in Grade 1. Where Grade 2 writes one shorter, that form follows.
old
open
Grade 2: ⠕⠏⠢ — 3 cells instead of 4
over
Grade 2: ⠕⠧⠻ — 3 cells instead of 4
In a whole book
In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the letter o is printed 8,142 times. Grade 2 still writes it as its own cell 3,988 times, 49.0%. The other 4,154 are inside contractions, most often “of” (619), “ou” (441), “ow” (438) and “you” (396).
The cell itself is written 4,181 times in the Grade 2 text: 3,988 as the letter, 1 inside shortforms and 192 as the second cell of a two-cell contraction.
O in braille as an image
