Letter 21 of 26

The letter U in braille

U is dots 1, 3 and 6.

Dots 1-3-6

Unicode ⠥ — U+2825

How to recognise it

The third decade begins: u is a plus dots 3 and 6, so the bottom row is full and the top-left is raised. From here on, every cell has dot 6.

How this cell is built

U belongs to decade 3. It is the letter a with dots 3 and 6 added — the same transformation applied to every letter in this decade.

adots 3 and 6u

Easily confused with

These letters differ from U 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 U, written in Grade 1 so every letter has its own cell.

up

under

until

In Grade 2 this letter is also a word

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