In the last 2 years I've surveyed 2,764 dominican children between the ages of 8 to 15 if they knew the Spanish alphabet.97% of them didn't know and of the ones that did know 78% thought there are 27 letters.I did this because I was looking for the best school locally for my 5 year old son and thought I would send him to the school that the majority of the smarter children had gone to.He is now enrolled in the school everyone says is the best and after talking to the director she informed me that there are only 27 letters in the Spanish alphabet as she thinks that the Real Academia de Lengua de Espanol did away with the letters *che* and *elle*(ch,ll).She also said that according to the Dept of Education they were not allowed to teach the alphabet till the 3rd grade. I am very limited in the amount of Spanish that I know but of what I've learned it has become apparent that if you learn the alphbet and the sounds that the letters make you are able to pronounce any Spanish word as the sounds the letters make never change except c and g.....The question directed to anyone is, whould it not be better to teach the alphabet first as a foundation and expand from there?