Cutaneous reprogramming is a method of helping people with
dyslexia (and other learning problems) learn to distinguish
letters by
feeling their
shapes rather than just
looking at the letters on paper. Using the
tactile sense to become familiar with the connection between the form of a letter and its
sounds can be done in a lot of ways:
drawing and feeling letters in a tray of
sand; modeling them in
clay; handling
wooden letters, and just about anything else one can think of.
Maria Montessori used cut-out
sandpaper letters and other movable letters for instructing children whether or not they had any reading problems; using
touch as well as
sight and
hearing can increase a lot of people's avenues to learn how to work with the written word.
Sources:
Lappé, Marc. The Body's Edge: Our Cultural Obsession with Skin. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996.
http://www.montessori.org/Resources/Library/Educational/lifelit.html
http://www.readingnaturally.org/pobusiness.htm
http://www.dyslexia.com/library/ready.htm
http://www.education-otherwise.org/publications/eoleaflets/dyslexia.htm
http://www.hcity.com/glp_more.html