The Magic of the Alphabetic Principle The Dissection Room

Something borderline magical happens around the age of 5 years old…
Squiggly black lines on a piece of paper or screen suddenly transform from being meaningless shapes into something incredibly powerful.
I’m experiencing the magic as a parent right now. My 5 year old’s learning to read, and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life.
His mind is making connections he never knew possible, and the sense of empowerment that he feels is contagious, leaving me ready to jump for joy every time he reads something on his own.
Equally impressive is how quickly it’s all come together. In the span of just a few weeks, I’ve watched him occasionally recognize letters in his name, to reading full on sentences with confidence.
Here’s the thing — it really hasn’t been that quick. This is just the latest stage in a process that’s been happening deep inside his head since 6 months of age.
I want you to picture a 6 month old baby, blowing raspberries, babbling, and experimenting with different sounds.
Besides being frustratingly cute, these simple actions are laying the foundation for what’s to come - learning to read.
You see, the brain is undergoing a rapid transformation. Neurons are firing and connecting at a blistering pace, forming pathways that will one day allow the child to make sense of the squiggles and lines we call letters.
But it’s not just neuronal connections being made — the orofacial muscles are getting stronger, and the facial skeleton itself is making adjustments as teeth begin to come in, allowing for more sophisticated babbling. The child isn’t just making sounds anymore — they’re beginning to understand that these sounds have some meaning.
They’re entering the world of the alphabetic principle.
At its core, the alphabetic principle is the understanding that letters of the alphabet represent specific sounds in spoken language (unless the language is Chinese or Japanese, which use different but equally fascinating systems). It's the realization that these sounds, or phonemes, can be blended together to form words.
A “phoneme” is a sound, or a group of different sounds.
For example, the letter "B" makes the "buh" sound, while the letter "A" can make the "ah" sound. By saying “buh”, “ah”, “t”… you’re pronouncing the phonemes of the word “bat”.
When you hear a child saying “mama”, “dada”, “bruhbruh”, you’re hearing them associate phonemes with meaning, specifically their parents and siblings, and other familiar people and things around them.
But this is just the beginning of the alphabetic principle, and it only gets cooler from here.
The Pre-alphabetic Stage
The pre-alphabetic stage runs from birth to about 3 years old, although children are all different and there is some wiggle room in these age ranges.
I want you to picture a toddler, around 3 years old, flipping through the pages of a colorful book. At this pre-alphabetic stage, they’re not making the connection between letters and sounds. Instead, they’re developing what’s known as phonological awareness - the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds in spoken language.
Specifically, they’re learning to identify syllables, clusters of syllables, and phonemes.
One of the funnest methods to help a child identify syllables is to have them place their hand under their chin, and then say a word. Every time the mandible drops, that’s a syllable.
Go ahead and do it yourself right now. It really is kind of fun.
“Mama” has to two syllables, “papa” has two syllables, but “mom” and “dad” only have one syllable.
As this is happening, the auditory cortex is processing the sounds the child hears from both their own mouths and the parent or teacher with them. This is crucial for distinguishing between different phonemes, and helps create powerful connections throughout the brain.
At the same time, Broca's area in the frontal cortex is developing, which will