Material
Description of the Chart:
- Letters cut out in sandpaper, in groups, on boards, consonants in red, vowels in blue.
- There are six or seven charts with 4 to 5 letters on each chart.
- The vowels are all on one chart.
- Tall letters together-l,k,h,b.
- Curvilinear letters-c,s.
- n.b. Separate b and d, p and q.
Presentation
There is no presentation. When the children have started the sandpaper letters, the charts are hung up within reach. The children cannot resist feeling them as they go by, or as they are waiting in line. So place these strategically near some traffic zone.
Games in groups:
- Give a child a single sandpaper letter, tell him to say what it is and then to go and find the corresponding letter in the charts and to feel that.
- Point out a letter in the charts to another child and tell him to find the corresponding letter in the separate sandpaper letters.
In general, the games are similar to those played with the sandpaper letters; e.g. analysis of words and finding letters on charts.
Direct aim
To give added interest in the sandpaper letters to the child and to entice him to continue to feel them. N.B. If you wish the child to write in cursive writing, then the sandpaper letters that he feels should have cursive shapes. The power of touch is so great that he will reproduce the cursive and not the manuscript of the movable alphabet. He does not muddle them.