The objective of this thesis is to identify the determinants of the knowledge of the alphabet in Kindergarten, just before the systematic teaching of reading. The letters are arbitrary shapes which give no indication of their name or their sound that they represent, two types of determinants are likely to be involved: the child's cognitive abilities and the learning conditions. A specific test of letter knowledge (ECL) was designed to assess the knowledge of the three components of letters (name, sound and shape) by identification and production tasks. Data collected from a sample of 60 children validate this test. The study of correlations between scores on cognitive tests (attention, immediate and delayed visual and verbal memory, and learning) and the score of the ECL and secondly the analysis of regression highlighted the predominant role of attention. The conditions of learning were examined directly (observation of a lesson focused on letter learning led by an expert teacher, analysis of a student folder and the games in the class) and indirect (survey of a sample of 22 teachers). The classification of activities which are proposed to children helped us in designing a questionnaire to know more about teaching practices concerning letter teaching in Kindergarten and the opinions of teachers about letter learning. The tools designed may lead to further researches for exploring the links between educational activities and letters knowledge.
