The letter Z in braille

How to recognise it

Dots 1, 3, 5 and 6. z is e plus dots 3 and 6 and closes the alphabet. In Grade 2 a standalone z means the word 'as'.

The family this letter belongs to

Braille is built from ten base shapes, and Z is part of the family that starts with e. Add dot 3 to that shape and you get the second letter; add dots 3 and 6 and you get the third. Learning the family together is far faster than learning Z on its own, because one shape gives you three letters. The braille alphabet chart shows every family in one place.

Where Z turns up in Grade 2

Standing on its own with spaces either side, Z is not a letter at all — it is the whole word “as”. Inside a longer word it goes back to being an ordinary z. That is the rule beginners trip on most: as is a single cell, but the z in a word like “zoo” is just a letter.

Writing a capital Z

Braille has no separate capital letters. A capital is the same cell with a marker in front of it: dot 6, sitting alone in its own cell. So capital Z is two cells, not one.

Write that marker twice and it capitalises the entire word that follows, which is how braille handles something written in block capitals. A word in full capitals therefore costs two extra cells, however long it is.

Easily confused with

These letters differ from Z by a single dot, which is where reading errors actually happen. Drill them against each other rather than in alphabetical order.

Practice words

Each word below starts with Z, written in Grade 1 so every letter has its own cell.