The Letter People


The Letter People is an American children’s literacy program built around 26 anthropomorphic characters that represent the letters of the alphabet. Conceived in the mid-1960s by teachers Elayne Reiss-Weimann and Rita Friedman, the classroom materials were commercialized by New Dimensions in Education, Inc. beginning in 1968 and adopted in thousands of schools. The program’s early offerings, including Alpha One and Alpha Time, used stories, songs, filmstrips, and inflatable “Huggables” to teach letter–sound correspondence and early reading skills.
The Alpha Time program later expanded to television with a 60-episode, 15-minute series produced at KETC in St. Louis, which premiered on March 13, 1974 and later aired widely on public-television and educational stations. The original program and show drew attention for their gendered cast, which prompted debate and subsequent content adjustments in the 1970s.
Ownership changed in 1990 to Abrams & Co., which substantially revised the characters and curriculum in 1996 and later integrated the property into the DIG Pre-K program after Abrams merged into Abrams Learning Trends. In 2019, Excelligence Learning Corporation acquired the program and folded it into its Frog Street subsidiary; Frog Street later discontinued DIG Pre-K, ending new production associated with The Letter People.

Original program

Elayne Reiss-Weimann and Rita Friedman, two teachers from George Miller Elementary in Nanuet, New York, created the concept of Letter People. In 1964, first-grade teacher Reiss-Weimann formed the original idea for the Letter People. She had struggled daily to draw the attention of her 24 students in a distraction-fond hallway classroom at the overcrowded school. Weimann collaborated with an early childhood coordinator, Rita Friedman, to create an educational program that revolved around 26 anthropomorphic characters, each representing a letter of the alphabet, to teach beginning readers how to "decode" or "sound out" the consonants and vowels that form words. They embodied the basic rules of phonics into stories about this clan of make-believe pictograms called the Letter People.
Each letter of the alphabet had a distinct characteristic to help children learn not only the letter but the sound the letter represents in the written word. For example, Mister M has a munching mouth, Mister N has a noisy nose and Mister T has tall teeth. The characters were painted on large, two-dimensional portrait cards. Each character was given an engaging personality to help the teacher bring her or him alive in the classroom, and each character had a song to help children recall the distinguishing feature and sound. With the help of the Letter People, children remained on-task, learned more quickly, and retained what they learned. From the beginning, the children viewed the Letter People like real people and not just letters of the alphabet, phonics devices, or toys. On one occasion, when the Letter People had to be shipped to another school, the children insisted that holes would be placed in the boxes so that the Letter People could breathe as they traveled.
Weimann and Friedman later sold the idea in 1968 to the newly founded New Dimensions in Education, Inc. which, in turn, copyrighted and published The Letter People educational products in April of 1969. NDE developed the concept into classroom programs: Alpha One in 1968, and Alpha Time in 1972. Subsequently, NDE entered into a licensing agreement with Arista, granting Arista the exclusive rights to distribute The Letter People materials in schools and libraries, while NDE retained control over the home and trade markets.
Both program's basic concept was simple: Each letter of the English alphabet was represented by a unique character with traits derived from itself. The consonants were males and the vowels were females. Reiss-Weimann and Friedman also wrote two series of books about the characters, Read-to-Me and Fables from the Letter People. Liz Callen illustrated all the books of the latter series. Each Letter Person also had an accompanying song known as "Huggables". Other merchandise included filmstrips, flash cards, giant picture cards, board games, puzzles, other educational vinyl records, and coloring sheets. Educators who adopted the program were trained in its implementation, and The Letter People was soon picked up by over 37,000 schools across the US.

Alpha One

Alpha One, also known as Alpha One: Breaking the Code, was a first and second grade program introduced in 1968, and revised in 1974, that was designed to teach children to read and write sentences containing words containing three syllables in length and to develop within the child a sense of his own success and fun in learning to read by using the Letter People characters. Alpha One's game-like approach capitalized upon the child's sense of fun and imagination to develop interest in learning to read and spell. Learning letter symbols and sounds, mastering rules of word formation, and reading and writing are byproducts of the interaction between the child and his 26 "Letter People" friends, his participation in creative and dramatic play, his enjoyment of activities associated with specially developed filmstrips and recorded stories and rhymes, and his programmed success in a variety of visual and auditory discrimination "Letter People" games. This program is the precursor to the Alpha Time program.

Contents of the Alpha One Kit

Nearly all of the following materials have been described in conjunction with explaining the games and activities used during Alpha One lessons. In addition, teachers could also buy more materials through the NDE catalog along with the base program. The contents of the base Alpha One Kit are listed below with explanation:
  • Letter People and Symbol Cards: A collection of 26 durable placards each featuring a Letter Person illustration, along with four symbol charts to support phonetic decoding.
  • Story Pictures and Easel: Large illustrated story scenes used to visualize the stories; the accompanying easel was built to display both the scenes and the Letter People characters.
  • Letter Meeting Greeting Packets and Alphabet Sheets: Each packet contained 35 greeting cards per letter, supporting the introductory activities for each Letter Person.
  • Chatterbooks: A set of 35 student activity booklets designed for phonics, spelling, and word recognition exercises.
  • Puppets and Stage: Provided with rhymed scripts, the puppets and stage encouraged dramatic play and reading aloud.
  • Chalkboards: Reusable individual slates given to students to practice writing and decoding skills.
  • Chatter Album: A 12", 33 1/3 rpm vinyl record that reinforced vowel sounds and foundational phonics lessons.
  • Filmstrips: Humorous animated segments designed to reinforce sound-symbol association and character traits.
  • Duplicating Masters: A collection of 50 reproducible worksheets for student assessment and take-home review to share with families.
  • Professional Guide: A step-by-step instructional manual for teachers with structured lesson plans for each unit.
  • Alpha Wagon: A mobile storage unit designed to hold and transport all components of the program conveniently.

    Alpha Time

Alpha Time, also known as Alpha Time: Beginning Reading, was a kindergarten program introduced in 1971, and revised in 1976 and 1980 that was meant to help children develop oral communication; dramatic play; oral/aural discrimination; visual discrimination and letter identification; and social living through the use of the Letter People. In Alpha Time, kindergarteners were introduced to the child-sized vinyl characters commonly known as the Huggables", which were large enough for small children to hug, instead of the 2D picture cards used in the 1st and 2nd grade Alpha One program. Alpha Time was meant to be used before Alpha One to introduce children to these basic concepts.

Contents of the Alpha Time Kit

Source:
  • 144 Picture Squares: Illustrated cards linked to the sounds of Letter People characters, used in sorting, matching, counting, and visual/auditory discrimination activities.
  • Five 12” RPM Disc Recordings: Audio materials that reinforced phonics and storytelling through music and narration.
  • 27 Puzzles: Interlocking puzzles that increased in difficulty and helped children connect letters to sounds and images, supporting both phonetic awareness and fine motor development.
  • 162 Duplicating Masters: Illustrated reproducible worksheets used for daily practice and parent engagement. Each included teacher notes and letters home that explained the learning process.
  • Six Filmstrips: Colorful short films designed to reinforce key concepts and facilitate group discussion about shapes, sizes, locations, and numbers.
  • Four "Read to Me" Books: Illustrated stories about four of the Letter People, intended for classroom read-alouds or paired with recordings for independent listening.
  • 420 Picture Books: Seventy copies each of six different picture readers, reflecting familiar classroom situations to ensure accessibility for children of all backgrounds.
  • The Huggables: Inflatable vinyl versions of the Letter People characters, available in two sizes, designed for physical interaction and dramatic play.
  • 16 Giant Picture Cards: Large illustrations of daily experiences or class-told stories, used to promote oral communication, storytelling, and comprehension through role play.
  • 2 Board Games: Colorful educational games that increased in complexity as more characters were introduced. These supported phonemic awareness, memory, and following directions.
  • 4 Decks of Playing Cards: Used in conjunction with the board games to provide additional opportunities for matching and letter-sound practice.
  • Professional Guide: A teacher’s manual with structured, adaptable daily lesson plans, including an “On Their Own” section suggesting independent enrichment or reinforcement activities.

    Reception and criticism

Gender controversy

The original Letter People program faced significant criticism in the early 1970s for its gendered portrayal of the alphabet, with vowels depicted as female and consonants as male. Feminist groups and educators objected to how female characters were often portrayed as weak, emotional, or dependent on male characters, while male characters were depicted as strong and active.
In 1972, Suffolk Women's Liberation, led by kindergarten teacher Lois Rodriguez, protested the program as "blatantly sexist," citing examples like a poem where a consonant declares, "A girl's no good for work or play." The group met with publisher Dr. Bernard Kauderer of New Dimensions in Education, who defended the program's emphasis on cooperation but acknowledged some content could be revised. The Suffolk County Human Rights Commission investigated the complaints, with commissioner W. Burghardt Turner questioning whether the program reinforced children's biases rather than challenging them.
While some educators and students defended the program - including first-graders who wrote letters pleading to keep their "letter people" - critics like educator Thelma Taub argued that "reading can be fun without the stereotypes." In response to the criticism, publisher Ruth Lerner agreed to modify some content, such as reducing the number of crying female vowels, but maintained the gendered structure was essential to the program.Additionally, some vowel characters who received particularly pointed criticism, including Miss I and Miss O, were later revised to become the "Incredible Inventor" and "Optimistic Optimist" respectively after the television series' run.

Television series

lan J. Pratt, Ph.D., a director and vice-president of NDE, Inc. approached KETC-TV, a PBS affiliate in St. Louis, Missouri, about creating a TV series based on the escapades of the Letter People. After five pilot programs were produced, Dr. Pratt approached the Council of Great City Schools. Eventually, with the cooperation of the superintendents of the Council, NDE, and KETC-TV, a joint venture commenced. The series was originally planned to comprise 120 15-minute episodes, but only 60 were produced. Despite this, it became extremely popular nationwide among children who were learning to read. To ensure phonetic and linguistic accuracy in the television production process, Ruth Lerner from NDE served as the Editorial Supervisor. Pratt was the Curriculum Consultant for the TV series. Tom McDonough of KETC-TV was the series' writer-director. While thousands of children were learning about the Letter People in school, thousands of others were being exposed to them through the television series based on the program. The show was extremely popular with children, and it quickly spread to over 105 other television stations across the country, via syndication, mainly to PBS and educational stations. The television series premiered on March 13, 1974.
The Letter People undertake various adventures in Letter People Land, a dark, featureless place populated by strange people and creatures. Episodes usually focus on introducing new Letter People or new sounds formed by combining two Letter People together. Other episodes take the Letter People to more exotic locales such as outer space, while a few highlight the characters' conflicts over various sounds. Another common feature of the show is the Catching Game, which is a game show hosted by Monty Swell where the Letter People must form words by positioning themselves correctly side-by-side.

Opening and closing sequence

A little dog is minding his own business when various figures enter the gates of Letter People Land as the song plays:

Episode guide

Availability

The show continued to air reruns on PBS stations until late 1994. NDE released the show's episodes on a 5-tape VHS set of Letter People "Learning Advantage Videos" as part of the Letter People curriculum in 1995; on the other hand, fans have preserved the episodes on many VHS recordings taped off of TV while the show was still on the air, and various DVDs having the episodes preserved can be found from time to time on auction sites such as eBay. The entire series has been preserved online.

Revised

In 1990, Abrams & Co. Publishers Inc. of Austin, Texas, bought the rights to The Letter People from the previous owner, Norwalk, Connecticut-based New Dimensions in Education, Inc. At first, the company slightly revised the program, such as adding lowercase letters to the back of each Letter Person, but in 1996, they gave the program a major update, completely redesigning the look of the characters and the associated materials, and also made sweeping changes to many of the Letter People, especially over half of their genders themselves, most obviously equalizing the proportion of male to female characters. The male characters' names changed from "Mister" to "Mr.", and the female characters' names changed from "Miss" to "Ms.". Most of the characters' associated characteristics were changed as well, such as all references to "junk food" being swapped for non-food-related characteristics and any Letter Person that Abrams deemed as expressing negative images being changed to be more positive. AlphaKid A was used as the newer program's mascot.
New Letter People storybooks were written, many with simple rebus and decodable words. In 2002, a newer "Read-to-Me" book series was also written, with an eye toward teaching conflict resolution and problem-solving skills, and features a variety of genres including storybook, mystery, biography, poetry, and nonfiction.
The program is divided into three levels with increasing emphasis on phonics: Let's Begin with the Letter People for preschool, Land of the Letter People for kindergarten, and Lives of the Letter People for first grade. The program has been taught to about 35 million children.
Though the program is generally well received by educators, some have criticized its strong focus on phonics at the expense of other literacy-building techniques.
In 2008, after Abrams & Co. Publishers, Inc. was acquired by Learning Trends and merged into Abrams Learning Trends, The Letter People program, along with other Abrams & Co. Publishers properties, eventually became incorporated into the DIG Pre-K curriculum.
In the early 2010s, four new Letter People characters were added to the program in order to teach children Spanish. The four characters are Srta. Ch, Sr. Ll, Srta. Ñ and Sr. Rr.
In May 2019, Abrams Learning Trends, along with its properties including The Letter People characters, was acquired by Excelligence Learning Corporation and became incorporated into a subsidiary of Frog Street Press, thus causing Abrams Learning Trends to cease operations as an individual company. As of September 21, 2020, The Letter People had no more new content made but the franchise continued to be kept alive as a learning unit of the DIG Pre-K program, with the hand puppets, certain educational materials, a CD with the songs, and most of the big books of the Letter People having been available on Frog Street Enterprises' online store until early 2024. All discontinued material such as worksheets, flashcards, the Huggables, and other books of the Letter People are still available second-hand from time to time through other online stores such as eBay.
As of February 1, 2024, Frog Street Press discontinued the DIG Pre-K program, ending the life of the Letter People.

The Number Workers

Along with the original program of The Letter People, its mathematics-equivalent program The Number Workers was also created. The Number Workers are referred to as the numerical cousins of the Letter People from a planet called "Number Workers World" and were created to help children learn not only about numbers, their sounds and how many there are in each number, but also symbols, mathematics, time, addition, and measurement. They range from numbers 1–9 with the odd numbers being males and the even numbers being females. Each Number Person carries a number of objects to teach children how many there are to represent the number, and also represents the job they employ: Mister 1 as a scientist, Miss 2 as a doctor, Mister 3 as a pilot, Miss 4 as a construction worker, Mister 5 as a sports player, Miss 6 as a shape stacker, Mister 7 as an ice-cream salesman, Miss 8 as a photographer and Mister 9 as a magician.
Unlike The Letter People, The Number Workers was lesser-known and had very few products, including an Alpha Math workbook, flashcards, giant picture cards, a teacher's guide, and a vinyl-containing accompanying songs for each Number Worker.

The Number People

When The Letter People program was revamped in 1996, The Number Workers program was also revamped along with it and was renamed "The Number People". This version features six males and five females, with two new numbers introduced, which are 0 and 10. Each Number Person has the numeral placed to the top-right corner of his/her uniform, while a number word was also added to the back of each Number Person. A Spanish-language version was also available to teach the Spanish names of the numbers.

Place where the Letter People live

In the original 1968 program, the place where the Letter People live was originally a fictional town called "Letter People Land" but, when the program was revised in 1990, it was renamed the "Land of the Letter People". As the newly revised program in 1996 utilized the newer version of the characters and town structures, the name of the Letter People's residence still remained the same.

List of Letter People

  • Note: The characteristic of Miss I and Miss O changed shortly before The Letter People television series ended its run.
  • Note: The characteristic of Mr. Q changed from "Quiet Questions" to just "Questions" to teach children that keeping your questions "quiet" will not answer them.

    Books

Read-to-Me (1972–1978)

^Unknown illustrator
*illustrated by James Razzi

Fables of the Letter People (1988–1989)

Let's Begin with the Letter People (1997–2000)

Take-Home Books (2000)

Read-to-Me (2002–2003)

Credits

Original program (1968)

Creative Team

Songs (1972)

  • Paul Evans – Mister F, Mister N, Mister S

    Television series (1974)

Source:

Creative Team

Puppeteers and Voices

Revised program (1996)

Creative Team

Voices

Strategy Tapes

In popular media

Literature

  • The May 30, 1970 issue of Billboard magazine has an article about the acquisition of American Artist Corp. by NDE.
  • The March 29, 1971 issue of Time magazine has an article about NDE and the Letter People.
  • The May 12, 1972 issue of Life magazine has a section about the Letter People called "The Huggables".

    Films

  • In the 1974 film It's Alive, the "Huggables" are shown when Frank, the main character, visits the school.
  • A 2025 documentary titled Everything I Need to Know I Learned from The Letter People, directed by Jason Paul Collum, covered the history of the Letter People along with its creator, Elayne Reiss-Weimann, and publisher, Dr. Bernard Kauderer.