Letter 6 of 26

The letter F in braille

F is dots 1, 2 and 4.

Dots 1-2-4

Unicode ⠋ — U+280B

How to recognise it

Dots 1, 2 and 4 form a corner opening down-left — the mirror image of d. Learn the pair together rather than separately; the contrast is easier to feel than either shape alone.

How this cell is built

F 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 F 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 F, written in Grade 1 so every letter has its own cell.

for

fish

find

In Grade 2 this letter is also a word

Standing alone, F means “from”. Inside a longer word it is just the letter f. See the contraction reference for the full list.