Letter 10 of 26

The letter J in braille

J is dots 2, 4 and 5.

Dots 2-4-5

Unicode ⠚ — U+281A

How to recognise it

Dots 2, 4 and 5 close the first decade. j is h mirrored, and it is also the cell that becomes the digit 0 after a number sign — the only digit that breaks the a=1 pattern.

How this cell is built

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

jar

jump

join

In Grade 2 this letter is also a word

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