Letter 23 of 26
The letter W in braille
W is dots 2, 4, 5 and 6.
Dots 2-4-5-6
Unicode ⠺ — U+283A
How to recognise it
Dots 2, 4, 5 and 6 — the exception in the whole alphabet. Louis Braille designed the code for French, which had no w, so w was added afterwards and does not follow the decade pattern at all.
How this cell is built
w breaks the pattern. Louis Braille built the code for French, which had no letter w, so w was added later and does not follow decade 3. It is dots 2-4-5-6.
Easily confused with
These letters differ from W 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 W, written in Grade 1 so every letter has its own cell.
was
with
water
Standing alone, W means “will”. Inside a longer word it is just the letter w. See the contraction reference for the full list.