AIBU to think we should stop using capital letters entirely?

[MRex]

My toddler is desperate to understand letters, but in cartoon songs he finds little/big letters confusing. This is my sole reason for realising that yes, actually it is confusing. Why do we make everyone learn two letter styles and two pronunciations (normal and phonetic), when they could learn half that and be off reading? While it might train the brain a little, we'd be better using that same training time on learning Mandarin or Russian characters. Anyone who struggles with letters has a better chance getting on if there's only "a" pronounced "ah" to learn too. What great reason to keep both am I missing?

U r not beeng unreasonable reeding & righting dont need all the silly waste off time rules wee can doo just ars well without 2 many varyations on how wee should rite.

Hebrew doesn't have capital letters but it doesn't make it any easier to learn! Firstly, 5 letters have a 'final' version so if that letter appears at the ends of a word you use the final version. Then, a lot of printed Hebrew doesn't use vowels! Plus, there's a printed alphabet and a hand-written alphabet that look slightly different.

So, you know, every language has its quirks!

(Okay, technically it's ALL capitals, no lower case!)

I read and speak Hebrew. No capital letters! But they do have 2 scripts, one that is formal and one more informal called script. And the letters look different... not sure the point of that either

I get it totally! If school is following an approved phonics programme, a child won't meet capital letters, letter names or the alphabet until they have the lower case letters and digraphs for all but one of the phonemes of English. After all, lower case letters make up 90% or more of what we read. I get wound up by all the block capitals children get exposed to through toys and some keyboards. It's not helpful! And parents who teach the alphabet using block caps thinking they've given the child a head start for reading. No you haven't. You've taught them the alphabet and now we have to work round that to teach lower case letters and their sounds. The alphabet isn't reading any more than recognising the number symbols is arithmetic!

Quite a few children seem to think that capital letters make the traditional alphabet names (ay, bee, see etc) and lower case letters make the phonetic sounds that they are taught first (short vowels and basic consonant sounds), and I think this mistaken impression can often persist until they're older if no one explicitly teaches them: capital letters do not have different names/sounds to lower case ones. They are purely a punctuation/typographical difference. They can make short and long vowel sounds and combinations. They have exactly the same names - you can use traditional alphabet-song style names or phonetic sounds for either capital or lower case letters (one isn't ay like angel and the other a like apple).