Days of the Week in Braille: Grade 1 and Grade 2 Chart

In braille, each day of the week starts with the capital sign, dot 6, because English prints the days with a capital letter. In uncontracted braille (grade 1) the rest is spelled letter by letter: Monday is ⠠⠍⠕⠝⠙⠁⠽. In contracted braille (grade 2), the letters day at the end become one two-cell contraction, so Monday is ⠠⠍⠕⠝⠐⠙.

Those two things, the capital sign and the day contraction, cover all seven days. Wednesday and Thursday each add one more contraction in grade 2.

Below: the seven days and the twelve months in both grades, with the dots of each cell; what changes in grade 2 and why; a full date with numbers; and ideas for a classroom calendar or schedule labels. Every cell on this page was generated by the code behind the braille translator on braillito.com, not typed by hand, and each rule comes from the Rules of Unified English Braille, Third Edition 2024, from the International Council on English Braille (ICEB rulebook).

Key points

• The capital sign comes first. The UEB rule is short: "Follow print for the use of capital letters." (ICEB, rule 8.1.1). Days and months have a capital in print, so they have one in braille.
• Every day ends in the same contraction in grade 2. The letters day become dot 5 followed by d (⠐⠙). The rulebook says to use it wherever those letters occur (ICEB, rule 10.7.1).
• Grade 1 spells every letter. Monday is 7 cells in grade 1 and 6 in grade 2, counting the capital sign.
• Four months don't change. April, May, June and July look the same in both grades.
• Dates need the numeric indicator. Each number in a date starts with ⠼, dots 3-4-5-6, and it comes back after a space.

Days of the week in braille at a glance

Sources: ICEB, Rules of Unified English Braille 2024 (rules 6.1, 8.1, 8.3, 10.4 and 10.7); BANA, The ABCs of UEB. Cells generated by the Braillito translator's code (grade 2 with the liblouis 3.39.0 UEB tables).

The seven days in braille

The table shows each day in grade 1 and in grade 2, and the dots of the grade 2 form, one cell at a time. A braille cell has six dots: 1, 2 and 3 down the left side, and 4, 5 and 6 down the right. If the letters are new to you, start with the braille alphabet.

In grade 1, each day has one cell more than it has letters: the capital sign. In grade 2, day takes two cells instead of three, so every day is one cell shorter. Wednesday and Thursday save one more cell each, with ed and th. That is how Wednesday goes from 10 cells to 8, and Thursday from 9 to 7.

Monday, cell by cell

Here is grade 2 Monday, one cell at a time:

1. ⠠ dot 6: the capital sign. It makes the next letter a capital.
2. ⠍ dots 1-3-4: m.
3. ⠕ dots 1-3-5: o.
4. ⠝ dots 1-3-4-5: n.
5. ⠐ dot 5: the first cell of the day contraction.
6. ⠙ dots 1-4-5: d. After dot 5, it reads as day.

In grade 1, the end of the word is three letters instead: d, a and y (⠙⠁⠽).

Two other forms show up on calendars. Written in lower case, as in a word list, the day loses its capital sign: monday is ⠍⠕⠝⠐⠙ in grade 2. Written in all capitals, MONDAY starts with two capital signs, the capitalized word indicator: ⠠⠠⠍⠕⠝⠐⠙. BANA says two dot 6s "indicate that the following word or letter sequence is fully capitalized" (BANA). The braille words page shows the same thing with Hello and HELLO.

The capital sign at the start

In print, English writes the days of the week and the months with a capital letter, and UEB follows print. BANA, the Braille Authority of North America, says dot 6 "indicates that the following letter is capitalized" (BANA, The ABCs of UEB). The ICEB rulebook describes a capital letter as "a two-cell symbol" (rule 8.3.1): dot 6, then the lowercase letter.

That is why each day and each month in the tables has one cell more than its letters in grade 1. The capital sign goes only before the first letter. The rest of the word is lower case, so nothing else is marked.

The capital sign also works on contractions. When a sentence starts with Today, grade 2 writes today as a contraction, and the capital sign goes in front of it. The rulebook says to place dot 6 "before a contraction when only its first letter is capitalised" (rule 8.3.2). You will see it in the sentence Today is Monday. further down.

Which contractions show up in grade 2

Grade 2, or contracted braille, uses one or two cells for common groups of letters and for whole words. NLS, the braille and talking book service of the Library of Congress, describes braille as having "a system of contractions and short-form words to save space" (NLS). Seven contractions show up in the names of the days and months:

Day is an initial-letter contraction: dot 5 in front of the letter d. The rulebook says to use it "as a wordsign and wherever the letters it represents occur" (rule 10.7.1). So day on its own is ⠐⠙, and inside a longer word, like Monday or yesterday, it is the same two cells. The rulebook's own example for this rule is Friday, written exactly as in the table above.

The other six are strong groupsigns: one cell for two letters. The rule is to "Use the strong groupsign wherever the letters it represents occur" (rule 10.4.1), unless another rule limits it. That is why Wednesday has ed and Thursday has th, while the other five days keep every letter except day.

This page covers only the contractions in these words. For the full list, with the dots of each one, see braille contractions.

The months of the year in braille

The months work the same way: the capital sign, then the letters, with a contraction in grade 2 wherever the letters match one.

March changes the most: two contractions take it from 6 cells to 4. April, May, June and July have no letter group that grade 2 contracts, so they are the same in both grades. The four months that end in -ber all lose one cell to er.

Writing a date with numbers

A full date mixes words, punctuation and numbers. Here is the date this post was published, Sunday, November 1, 2026:

• Grade 1: ⠠⠎⠥⠝⠙⠁⠽⠂ ⠠⠝⠕⠧⠑⠍⠃⠑⠗ ⠼⠁⠂ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠋
• Grade 2: ⠠⠎⠥⠝⠐⠙⠂ ⠠⠝⠕⠧⠑⠍⠃⠻ ⠼⠁⠂ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠋

Reading it from left to right:

• The words. Sunday and November start with the capital sign, as in the tables. In grade 2, Sunday uses day and November uses er.
• The commas. Each comma is one cell, dot 2 (⠂).
• The day of the month. The number 1 is the numeric indicator followed by the letter a: ⠼⠁. The digits 1 to 9 and 0 are the letters a to j after that indicator.
• The year. 2026 gets a numeric indicator of its own. The rulebook says a numeric indicator sets numeric mode "for the remainder of the symbols-sequence" (rule 6.1.1). After the comma and the space, 2026 starts a new one, so it needs the indicator again.

The whole date is 25 cells in grade 1 and 23 in grade 2, not counting the spaces. For how numbers work in braille, how a number ends and how ordinals like 1st are written, see braille numbers.

A classroom calendar or schedule labels

This part is for a teacher putting up a calendar, or a parent labeling a weekly schedule. The ideas below are our suggestions, not rules.

Ask which grade to use. We found no rule on which grade a calendar should use; it depends on the reader. A student's teacher of students with visual impairments knows what the child reads and what they are learning next (teacher of the visually impaired). For labels in general, braille labels covers grade 1 and grade 2 and the ways labels are made.

Three-letter labels. Short day names are common on calendars. Five of them are the same in both grades. The short forms of Wednesday and Thursday keep their contraction:

Careful with one-letter labels. In grade 2, a letter standing alone is read as a whole word: m is more, t is that, w is will, f is from and s is so (ICEB, rule 10.1, alphabetic wordsigns). To show that a single letter is only a letter, UEB puts the grade 1 indicator, dots 5-6, in front. Rule 5.7.1 says it is needed "to prevent a letter from being misread as an alphabetic wordsign," and rule 5.8.1 adds: "A grade 1 indicator precedes a capitalisation indicator." So in grade 2 the five letters are ⠰⠠⠍, ⠰⠠⠞, ⠰⠠⠺, ⠰⠠⠋ and ⠰⠠⠎. In grade 1 they are just the capital sign and the letter, like ⠠⠍. Since T stands for both Tuesday and Thursday, and S for both weekend days, three-letter labels are clearer.

A sentence for the daily routine. Many calendar routines use a sentence strip such as Today is Monday. In grade 2, today is a shortform: t and d, ⠞⠙ (rule 10.9 lists it with tomorrow). The sentence:

• Grade 1: ⠠⠞⠕⠙⠁⠽ ⠊⠎ ⠠⠍⠕⠝⠙⠁⠽⠲ (16 cells)
• Grade 2: ⠠⠞⠙ ⠊⠎ ⠠⠍⠕⠝⠐⠙⠲ (12 cells)

The capital sign in front of td is the rule from the capital sign section. The full stop at the end is dots 2-5-6.

Other calendar words. These come up in morning routines and schedules:

Tomorrow is a shortform too (t and m). Yesterday uses st, er and day; month uses th; year uses ar; and weekend uses en (⠢, dots 2-6). Week stays the same.

Make it a game. Matching day cards to the calendar, or finding today's card by touch, turns the routine into practice. For more classroom ideas, see braille games and activities, and for the wider picture, a blind student in the classroom.

Have it checked. A calendar is read every day, so a mistake gets read every day too. NLS says computer translation "is not perfect" and that "materials must always be checked by a qualified braille proofreader" (NLS). For a classroom, the student's braille teacher is the natural person to ask.

Where Braillito fits

Braillito, our app, teaches braille. It teaches the braille cells in lessons with exercises you play, with lives, levels and a daily streak: 59 lessons in 8 worlds in English. It also has a translator, a dictionary and a cell builder. The English lessons are uncontracted braille (grade 1); they don't teach contracted braille or transcription, and Braillito isn't a braille transcriber.

A calendar or schedule that a braille reader uses every day is worth checking with someone who reads braille, such as the student's braille teacher. The translator on braillito.com shows how a day, a month or a short phrase looks in UEB grade 1 or grade 2, but it only applies the rules a program can apply, so it doesn't replace that check. Without paying, the braille translator works in any browser.

Braillito is a subscription with no free version; depending on the plan, it starts with a free trial or a discounted first period, if it's your first subscription (is Braillito free?). Get Braillito.

Frequently asked questions

How do you write Monday in braille?

In grade 1, Monday is ⠠⠍⠕⠝⠙⠁⠽: the capital sign (dot 6), then m, o, n, d, a and y. In grade 2, it is ⠠⠍⠕⠝⠐⠙: the capital sign, m, o, n, then the day contraction (dot 5, then dots 1-4-5). Without a capital, as in a word list, grade 2 monday is ⠍⠕⠝⠐⠙.

Are days of the week contracted in braille?

In grade 2, yes. All seven end with the day contraction, and Wednesday and Thursday also use ed and th. In grade 1, uncontracted braille, every letter is spelled out. Which one a reader uses depends on what they have learned. For every contraction, see braille contractions.

Do you use a capital letter for days in braille?

Yes. UEB follows print, and print capitalizes the days, so each day starts with the capital sign, dot 6. A day written in all capitals, as on some calendars, starts with two capital signs: ⠠⠠.

How do you write a date in braille?

Write the words as above and put the numeric indicator, dots 3-4-5-6, before each number. Sunday, November 1, 2026 in grade 2 is ⠠⠎⠥⠝⠐⠙⠂ ⠠⠝⠕⠧⠑⠍⠃⠻ ⠼⠁⠂ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠋. The commas are dot 2, and 2026 gets its own numeric indicator after the space. More in braille numbers.