Dot Patterns are the first step to reading. They help the students isolate the individual lines that make up a letter. The other amazing thing about using dot patterns is that students that have dyslexia and reverse their letters and numbers quickly improve, often catching a reversal before I have time to draw it to their attention.

Dot patterns have an amazing effect on students, especially those that reverse their letters and numbers. Not only do they help the student to see the lines that make up letters, they also teach thinking skills.
I can't stress enough how important these dot patterns are.

You can create your own dot patterns or you can use the ones available on this website. Students reproduce a dot pattern by copying one set of linked dots onto an adjacent blank set of identical dots

• PreBeginner: starts with just 2 lines and progress to 6 lines
• Beginner: starts with 6 lines and increase to 8 lines
• Intermediate: are from 8 lines to 10 lines
• Advanced: starts at 10 lines and go up

(example of a Dot Pattern)

How to Use Dot Patterns:

• students reproduce a dot pattern by copying one set of linked dots onto an adjacent blank set of identical dots
• in the beginning, the pattern may be trivial and composed of only 2 or 3 lines
• for kids who are really struggling, go over each line (on the original) with a different-color marker to make them more distinct
  I used to tell my son that he was making a road map and he would run his toy car over the lines he drew.
• to make things more interesting, these students can use the same colors to copy their dot pattern
• if needed, help the student determining which dot to use in order to begin by having them count the number of dots "down and over" from a corner
• encourage the student to draw complete single lines instead of drawing just one section (from one dot to one dot)
• copy dot pattern designs repeatedly — as students become more proficient at doing dot patterns, they make fewer and fewer letter and number reversals

See our Teaching Resources for Dot Patterns for worksheets, lesson plans, etc.

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