Deficient knowledge and awareness of the looptail G

What is it about?

Despite seeing it millions of times in pretty much every picture book, every novel, every newspaper and every email, people are essentially unaware of the most common version of the lowercase print g. Most people don’t even know two types exist. And if they do, they can’t write the common one. They can’t even pick it out of a lineup. The findings suggest the important role writing plays in learning letters.

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Why is it important?

Knowledge about the shapes of letters is critical for reading. This study investigated skilled readers’ letter-shape knowledge, focusing primarily on one specific letter form, the “looptail” form of lowercase G. Looptail g is extremely common in printed materials, but most people never learn to write it. We found that skilled readers were often unable to recall the existence of looptail g, and that their knowledge of the shape was usually incomplete or perhaps even inaccurate. These results contribute to our understanding of how letter shapes are learned (highlighting in particular the role that learning to write may play), and may also have implications for teaching of letters.