Sandpaper Spelling Assignment At Florida Middle School Leaves Kids Bleeding, Parents Outraged

[proud2BlibKansan]

62. It's called tactile learning. Also referred to as kinesthetic.

Any time you connect visual (which is how spelling is taught) to tactile, or touch, you increase the opportunity for permanence - or something we remember. Primary teachers do it every day. Feel the letters as you do when you trace them on sandpaper, and you're more likely to remember them. I've also used raised letters, which I make from several layers of liquid glue allowed to dry until you have created a raised surface over the image of the letter. There is also raised line paper which helps the children learn to write in a specific space, like the lines on a paper. I used to buy it but it was very expensive so when they cut our budgets I started making my own using liquid glue traced over the lines on the paper. This gives them visual and physical boundaries to help them learn to write within the lines.

But yes, I use sandpaper letters nearly every day with my kids who are still learning their letters. They're easier to make than the raised letters and it's a method that works (or I wouldn't do it).

Other kinesthetic methods include tracing the forms of the letters on the student's back. But as soon as a student complains that his teacher was touching his back, then we'll probably have an OP here claiming a teacher was hurting a child. That seems to be the pattern at least.