The letter P in braille

How to recognise it

Dots 1, 2, 3 and 4. p is f plus dot 3, and it is the mirror of the letter that follows patterns you already know — the left column is full, with one dot reaching right.

F, P and the “and” sign

P is F with dot 3 added; add dot 6 as well and the cell is the “and” sign, ⠯, rather than a letter.

Adding dots 3 and 6 turns a, b, c, d and e into u, v, x, y and z. For f, g, h, i and j the same step gives the words and, for, of, the and with — so f plus dots 3 and 6 is “and”, not a letter. The contraction reference lists all five.

Where P turns up in Grade 2

Standing alone, P is the word “people”. Inside a word it is the letter again: “put” is ⠏⠥⠞.

Writing a capital P

Capital P is two cells: the capital sign, dot 6, then P. A word in capitals takes the sign twice, once for the whole word: “PUT” is ⠠⠠⠏⠥⠞. Capitals covers longer runs.

Easily confused with

P differs by a single dot from F, L, M, Q and S — the letters to drill it against.

Practice words

Words that start with P, one cell per letter in Grade 1. Where Grade 2 writes one shorter, that form follows.

In a whole book

In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the letter p is printed 1,524 times. Grade 2 still writes it as its own cell 1,417 times, 93.0%. The other 107 are inside contractions, most often “perhaps” (34), “upon” (27), “people” (26) and “part” (19).

The cell itself is written 1,466 times in the Grade 2 text: 1,417 as the letter, 13 as the word “people”, 17 inside shortforms and 19 as the second cell of a two-cell contraction.