Missing Letters Worksheets

Related ELA Standard: RF.4.3.A

Core Standard
Answer Keys Here

Helping students master the sequence of the alphabet is a flagship skill that all educators need to hang their hat upon. For many students this is a skill that takes two to three years, at the least. The best way to approach this type of learning is in a rote manner where you attempt to memorize what is presented to you. At this level you should have a much lesser level of resistance that is required to complete all of these worksheets with a high level of accuracy. Again, we should be working at a mastery level in the later elementary level so this should just be used as a review or refresher skill. The worksheets that available in front of you will assort you to master the order of the alphabet. We encourage all teachers to massively share these with their students.

Missing Letters Worksheets To Print:

The Kitty Trail - Help the kitty make his way to the ball of yarn.

Missing Vowels - Look at each picture and write the missing short vowel: a, e, i, o, u.

Vowel Sounds - Write the missing short vowel sound. Use the pictures for clues.

Stars and Planets - What letters, in pattern, are the stars and planets covering up?

Bubbles - Complete all of the bubbles. The pattern goes left to right and then top down.

Trace and Fill - This is a penmanship refresher while also working on this skill.

What a Square - There are eleven squares for you to fill up and complete.

Say and Fill - Say the name of the picture. Fill in the missing letter. Use the pictures for clues.

In the Sea - Complete the pattern that is working its way through the sea or ocean.

Monkeying Around - Help the family of monkeys make their way to their delicious treat (bananas).

Review Skill - What letter or group of them are missing in each word? Write the complete term on each line

What's Going Away? - See if you can take an inventory of what is missing.

Bubbles Part 2 - These are all lower case letters in a much different font type than the first version.

Roller Coaster - Lay down the tracks for the roller coaster as they were intended.

Loving Hearts - The orientation of this worksheet will help you prove a level of mastery over this skill.

How to Spot Letter Patterns

A group of letters repeatedly appearing together in words are called letter patterns. For example, -ing, and -tion.


Letter patterns help you read new words whose pronunciation is unclear. Recognizing a letter pattern in a new word means, you already know the sound of it and won't have to sound out every letter for reading it.


How Do Letter Patterns Help with Spelling?


Spelling is the visual sequences of letters, and letter patterns make it easy to recall or guess the spellings of a word by rhyming it with a word that has a similar letter pattern.


Some letter patterns occur very often. Their frequent occurrence makes it easy for the spellers to remember and visualize them in different words. This visual familiarity enables people to learn about the probability of spellings. In addition, when we read these letter patterns so frequently, we automatically start sounding and writing them in chunks rather than in individual letters. If you're a good speller, you must have a good visual memory for words that look right.


To explain via examples:


Beginning Patterns: br-, st-, sk, pl-, bl-, gl-, thr-, spr-


End Patterns: -ed, -nt, -ful, -sure, -ness


Vowel Patterns: ou, ow, ie, ei, oy, igh, au, ough


Consonant Patterns: ch, th, sh, ng


Historical Patterns: -ough, igh, kn-, gn


How Can You Spot Letter Patterns?


A good strategy when you're trying to spot letter patterns in words is to make a dictionary. Each pattern might have different sounds in different words so putting them into sound groups will be a big help.


-ite: bite, site, kite, write, invite, quite
-ight: fight, flight, sight, right, light, uptight
-eight: weight, eight, freight
-tch: match, catch, (watch), notch, botch, witch, pitch (rich, which), hutch, butch (such)
spr- spring, spritz, sprat, spray, sprung, sprinkle


Developing the skill to spot these patterns is easy. You only need to practice, spell, and notice the patterns and rules.


Explaining the Concept With -ou- Pattern


-ound: bound, sound, round, hound, mound, pound, found, ground.


If you can pronounce one of these, pronouncing the rest wouldn't be an issue for you. Try rhyming or using this story rhyme for letter patterns:


"I found a round pound and a bound hound on the ground on top of a small mound."


-ouple: couple
-ouble: double, trouble
-ouse: house, spouse "Her spouse is in her house."
-oud: proud, loud, cloud "She is loud and proud, and her head is in a cloud."
-our: our, scour, flour, sour, devour while four, pour, your, tour
-out: outside, pout, about, sprout, spout
-outh: mouth, south while youth
-ount: mount, count, mountain, fountain


Visual Memory and Sounding Out the Letters


By dividing the letter patterns into sound groups, we can attempt to rhyme a new or unfamiliar word using a possible letter pattern.


But there are exceptions to all rules. Have a look at these same-sound words that have different letter patterns:


believe, achieve while receive
Light, right, flight, slight, bright while site, write, kite
air, hair, flair, affair while hare, flare, aware, care
plain, train, vain, rain while plane, lane, vein, reign, champagne
read, bed, ted while read (in past tense) head, dead, bread, said


Here, we have compiled a list of a few words with the same patterns but sound exceptions:


found, round, pound while young
weigh, weight, eight while height
August, autumn while Australia
cow, now, how while know, blow
batch, hatch, match while watch