Letter 1 of 26
The letter A in braille
A is dot 1.
Dots 1
Unicode ⠁ — U+2801
How to recognise it
A single raised dot in the top-left corner — the simplest cell in the code, and the one every learner reads first. If you can feel the difference between one dot and none, you can read a.
How this cell is built
A is one of the ten base shapes of decade 1, built from dots 1, 2, 4 and 5 only. Every letter from k onwards is one of these ten with extra dots added.
Easily confused with
These letters differ from A 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 A, written in Grade 1 so every letter has its own cell.
and
add
away