Have you heard the N-E-W-S? The Alphabet Song has changed—and people aren’t quite sure it’s for the better. Listen to the new song here.
The change that folks are noticing most is the shift in phrasing from the original’s distinct “LMNOP” (pronounced, of course, as ellehmenohpee) to a more spaced out, discrete enunciation of these letters. Less noticeable, but still noteworthy, is the removal of the word “and” in between “Y and Z” at the tail end of the tune.
So why the change?
Let’s begin by going straight to the source: Matt of Dream English Kids, a YouTube account that creates “catchy songs for children’s education and learning English,” created the new alphabet song with the goal of giving each letter “equal visual time” when played on screen. He says that the changes allow non-English speakers, children with special needs, and children with learning differences to more easily learn the alphabet (NPR, 2019).
Matt is right: following the uproar to the song, numerous educators have chimed in with the educational benefits to the new alphabet song.
Rachel Sorsel, a first-grade teacher who specializes in structured literacy, literacy intervention, and dyslexia, explains in a TikTok video that the new song supports young students in developing phonological awareness, or the ability to recognize and use individual phonemes (sounds) in spoken words.
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In short: with the old alphabet song, a student could hear “LMNOP” or “Y-and” and think these sounds represent one letter. In the new alphabet song, all letters are clearly differentiated. This change supports the youngest of students, in their still-developing phonological awareness, to clearly understand what letters correspond with what sounds. For Sorsel, who follows a teaching approach called structured literacy, this explicit distinction between letters is crucial to teaching the phonics rules upon which further reading and writing skills are built.
Amy Zembriski, a speech-language pathologist, agrees. This boost to phonological awareness is particularly helpful for kids with phonological disorders, “[giving] them a clearer model of how each letter sounds, making it easier to correct sound errors and reach important speech milestones.” Working with this new alphabet, too, may improve students’ ability to understand their own errors and may “have a positive impact on how they progress in [speech] therapy” (People, 2024).
These educators emphasize the success they’ve had working on the new alphabet song with students as well as their parents. Sorsel, who works with struggling readers alongside general-led classrooms, recalls students who “shut down a little bit” when singing the original song and, when introduced to the new song, were “super receptive.” She even notes that students who didn’t struggle with the original song still understood the reason for the change, usually because they had known someone who’d been confused by it before (People, 2024). Matt of Dream English Kids even received an email from a thankful parent of a child with autism, who said “her son listened to the song and, for the first time, recognized that the letters were separate” (NPR, 2019).
So, despite negative reactions online, changes to the alphabet song do come with sound educational reasoning. And, as the United States faces English literacy rates as low as 80% of U.S. adults aged 16-65 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019), it is certainly worth reassessing the efficacy of the tools we have for teaching the foundations of the English language. Armed with educational science, changes like these can help make them most accessible for all.