| There are neural connections
between the brain areas that process the visual shapes of
objects (this includes written letter shapes) and word sounds. These
'fuzzy' connections also extend into two nearby motor areas of the brain:
those that control the sequence of muscle movements required
for hand gestures and those for the muscles of the mouth,
lips and tongue. Synkinesia (to move together) is the term used for the effects
caused by this neural cross-activation. Professor Ramachandran
talked about these connections in the Reith lecture he
gave in 2003: www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lecturer.shtml
N.B.Don't confuse synkinesia with synesthesia, which is where two or more bodily senses are neurally coupled, for example, in grapheme-colour synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored (Wiki)
Charles Darwin, himself, pointed out that when we cut paper
with scissors, our jaws may clench and unclench unconsciously
as if to echo the hand movements.' (Scientific
American). Synkinesia also explains the tongue-out
position that many children adopt whilst they are drawing
and writing and why babies who are born deaf, 'babble' using
gesture and hand movements (D. McGuinness
2004 p41) The hand movements we tend to use during conversation
reveal the gestural origins of language.
Now that is known that our vision, hearing, mouth and hand
muscles are all linked and cross-activated in the brain, it becomes obvious
why it is so important to use a multi-sensory
method which includes sounding out and HANDwriting activities when teaching literacy. '...children find it easier to remember
spellings if they can remember the movement of the hand in
forming the word; hence the reason most people, when asked
to spell a difficult word, prefer to write it down. Janet
Townend, head of training at Dyslexia Action, says
this kind of multi-sensory approach is particularly helpful
for dyslexic children. "Fluency of writing helps with
fluency of spelling," she says. "If children can
see words on the page, feel them in their mouth and experience
the movement of writing as well, that helps enormously with
spelling." (TES Friday 12/11/04
p12)
Forming invisible letter shapes in the air, on a textured board or on a person's
back/forearm, is not a useful activity. Memory for letter shapes can be greatly
improved by creating cross modal connections, but two or more
sensory modes must be connected at the same time; real writing
is movement made visible. (McGuinness.
WCCR p217)
'Avoid asking children to
write independently before they have been taught at least
one way of representing all the main sounds in English.'(RRF
no.51. p4) Once students have been taught a Basic (transparent) Code using synthetic
phonics they can very quickly start writing with confidence,
knowing that they, and other people, will be able to read
what is written phonetically.
Debbie Hepplewhite, a synthetic phonics expert and advisor, gives the following advice on teaching reluctant
children to write:
'If children are not writing then something is preventing
it. Can they segment orally? Can they write all their letter/s-sound
correspondences independently (give them a dictation test)?
Can they write at word level? Can they talk in simple sentences
which they can then write? Don't expect writing to 'emerge' - TEACH THEM!' We now know that we cannot just expect children's writing skills 'to emerge' with maturity or 'readiness' and we understand, or should, the many basic sub-skills involved with the technical side of the writing process - and that we need to teach these very explicitly before we should ask, or expect, children to 'write' their ideas'' (Hepplewhite.TES) Debbie also points out the 'difference between learning to write with a mini whiteboard sitting cross-legged on the floor with a marker pen – and learning to write with paper and pencil, learning correct pencil hold and sitting comfortably at a correct-sized desk' (ABC Does...blog) One of these practices will produce neat and confident handwriting, one is highly unlikely to do so..
............................................................................
www.candocubes.com/grammar-guides.php#content
Basic, on-line grammar guide
www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2007/07/25/nosplit/ftpunc125.xml
Kung Fu punctuation
http://www.cre.org.uk/docs/primary_english_curriculum.pdf
An English Syllabus for children aged 4 to 11 by Irina Tyk
http://www.phonicsinternational.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=196
Debbie Hepplewhite discusses nonsense words, invented spelling
and independent writing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3894007.stm
Babies babble with hands.
www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=374746
Modern youngsters have poorer speech skills, right? Wrong!
www.earlyreadingplayschool.com.au/OurStrategy/YSE/os-yse-helendoron.htm
Language development 0-3 years.
www.thewritingcode.com/pages/transcripts/pinker.html
Prof. Steven Pinker: The Writing Code
www.krysstal.com/writing.html
The history, development and evolution of the world's writing
systems
http://www.gifbin.com/984203
Animated evolution of the Alphabet.
Defintion of writing: 'A system of more or less permanent marks used to represent an utterance in such a way that it can be recovered more or less exactly without the intervention of the utterer.' P Daniels. The World’s Writing Systems p21
Link to Handwriting | Spelling
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