Looking for Teachers Who Remember the Original 1968–1996 Letter People Program: What It Teaches Us About Phonics Today
It was 7:15 on a Tuesday, goldfish crumbs stuck to my 6-year-old Lila’s phonics worksheet, and she’d just mixed up b and d for the 12th time that night. I was leaning back in my chair, rubbing my temples, when I remembered Mrs. Hale, my kindergarten teacher, talking about a program she used back in the 70s called the Letter People. My mom was a first grade teacher through the 80s, and her old teaching boxes were still tucked in the back of our attic. That weekend, I dragged them down past the lopsided artificial Christmas tree and my old high school cheer uniform, and dug until I found what I was looking for: a stack of original Letter People flashcards, held together with yellowed packing tape, edges worn thin from 20 years of little kid hands.
Ms. M had a wiggly purple mouth that curved into an m, labeled right there: “Ms. M says mmmmm.” Mr. S had a super long, scratchy snake coiled around his body that went “sssss.” Lila picked them up immediately, cackling at Mr. T’s tall fuzzy cotton-ball tummy, and when I said the sound, she repeated it right back without hesitation. I asked her first grade teacher about the program a few days later, and she shrugged—she’d never heard of it, only seen a watered-down updated version from the 2000s that didn’t look anything like my tattered flashcards. I posted a quick question in our local parent-teacher Facebook group: Looking for teachers who worked before 1996, do you remember the original Letter People Program? That’s when the stories started rolling in.
First, Rita Carter called me. She retired from the elementary school three blocks from my house in 2018, after 32 years teaching first grade, and she laughed when I mentioned the program. She’d been talking about it with her retired teacher friends just a month prior, she said, complaining that no one talks about how well it worked for kids who struggled with letter recognition. Back when she started, most phonics programs just had you repeat letters over and over from worksheets. The original Letter People did something different: it tied every sound directly to a visual that made sense, that stuck. If you struggled to tell b and d apart, you didn’t just drill the shapes. You thought of Mr. B’s big bubble belly, sticking out on the left side of the letter. You thought of Mr. D’s big dimple, sitting on the right.
Rita didn’t just show flashcards, either. She had kids act it out. You’d make your own Mr. B belly with your fist held in front of your chest on the left, say “b-b-bubble” out loud, feel the pop of the sound on your lips. She had every kid make their own set of Letter People out of construction paper, so they were moving their hands, gluing on the cotton balls for fuzzy tummies, drawing the curly puffs for Ms. P’s hair, while saying the sound over and over. It was multisensory before anyone was using that word to sell curriculums, she said. It just worked.
That hit me, because I’d been wondering why Lila was struggling so much with the worksheets she brings home. Every page is full of matching letters to generic pictures, fill-in-the-blank lines, same black shapes on white paper. For a kid who still struggles to keep similar shapes straight, it’s just a blur of lines. There’s nothing to hook the memory, nothing silly or personal to hold onto. I tried Rita’s trick with Lila that same night. When she mixed up b and d, instead of saying “no, that’s the other one,” I asked her “where’s Mr. B’s bubble belly?” She made a fist with her left hand, held it up next to the letter, and grinned when she realized she’d gotten it wrong. She corrected herself immediately.
We made our own small set of Letter People for the five letters she mixes up most: b, d, p, q, m. She glued cotton balls on Mr. T’s tummy, drew a big lollipop on Ms. P’s purple hair, and now when she gets stuck, she taps the character and says the sound. It didn’t fix everything. She still mixes up p and q when she’s tired and ready to be done with homework. But it cut our nightly phonics time from 45 minutes of tears and frustration to 20 minutes of mostly okay work. She doesn’t hide her worksheet under the table when I sit down to help anymore. That’s a big win.
The original Letter People program ran from 1968 to 1996, before it got major overhauls. First they changed the Mr. and Ms. titles to be more inclusive, then over time they shifted the characters, and most of the new versions lost that direct link between the character’s trait and the letter sound. A lot of the retired teachers who commented on my post said they still keep their old original sets in garages or basements, because they don’t make them like that anymore. One woman in upstate New York offered to ship me her original set of puppets for just the cost of postage. Rita, the retired teacher down the road, told me she has her full original teacher guide and puppet set in her garage, and I can come pick it up anytime.
I don’t think we need to bring the entire original program back exactly as it was. It has parts that definitely show its age, and the old gendered naming convention is one that makes sense to update. But the core idea it used— that silly, physical, personal memories help kids hold onto sounds way better than rote memorization from worksheets— is something a lot of modern phonics programs have pushed out in favor of test-aligned drills. The best part is, you don’t need an expensive old curriculum to use that idea. Any parent or teacher can make a simple custom set for the letters a kid struggles with in 10 minutes, with construction paper and markers you already have at home. Have the kid draw the character themselves, so they get the muscle memory along with the sound. Practice making the sound with the movement, instead of just repeating the letter name.
I’m going to pick up Rita’s full set next Saturday. I’m bringing Lila with me, and a box of homemade chocolate chip cookies to say thank you. I don’t know if we’ll use every puppet or every lesson in the old guide. But so far, the little bits we’ve borrowed from the original Letter People have made our evening homework time a lot less stressful. I’m just glad there are still teachers out there who remember how well it worked, and are willing to share what they know.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Looking for Teachers Who Remember the Original 1968–1996 Letter People Program: What It Teaches Us About Phonics Today