Abstract: An educational toy for teaching construction and recognition of predetermined individual forms, comprising a plurality of elemental components having shapes and sizes to constitute component parts of predetermined forms, especially letters of the alphabet. A minimum number of distinctively shaped parts can be selectively arranged to make a large number of predetermined forms. Each distinctively shaped part is also distinctively colored to facilitate selection. Illustrations are provided of the several letters or other forms, using the color coding of the elemental components, preferably in the form of individual cards. A dot code is also printed in association with each illustration, to facilitate a determination of the number of parts of each color necessary to make the illustrated form.