There is some evidence from psychology studies that we use the shapes of words to recognise them. The shape of a word is made up of the ascending (tall letters), descending (letters that go under the line) and neutral (short) letters. This could be one of the reasons we find reading a sentence made up of capital letters harder to read, as each word has a rectangular shape. Whilst this has never been properly substantiated, it is a good exercise for children to recognise and consider the shape of a word. These worksheets look at the shapes made by the ‘tricky words’ from phases 2 to 5 of the Letters and Sounds programme. The words are printed at the top of the page. Read each word in turn, putting your figure under the word being read. Ask your child to repeat the reading of the words. Look again at the first word and try to find the shape amongst the shapes shown below. When the word and the shape have been matched ask your child to write the word in the shape, one letter in each space. Continue until all the words and shapes have been matched.