Tactile Tracing for Dyslexia: Learning Through Touch
For children with dyslexia, traditional teaching methods can overlook their amazing strengths and unique learning needs. The highly effective, time-tested Orton Gillingham approach is a powerful tool that is wonderful to witness because it emphasizes an often overlooked portion of learning, even by those who strive to include a multi-sensory approach. What is this awesome component?
Tactile learning!
Tactile, or “touch” learning helps children gain confidence in letter recognition and formation. In fact, these tracing techniques promote success for children in general! Along with kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learning, tactile tracing techniques use the power of touch to stimulate a child’s sensory system. This helps children with dyslexia retain and connect on a deeper level with letter formation, sounds, spelling patterns, word recognition, and more! Plus, it’s fun!
In this blog post, we will explore ten practical strategies to include tactile learning in the Orton-Gillingham approach, helping these children develop essential reading and writing skills.
10 Fun Materials for Tactile Tracing
Your child will likely gravitate to certain materials over others. Make it fun! Enjoy testing out which soft or interesting materials your child enjoys touching and feeling! Happy children learn better! Keep in mind that some of these are fantastic for online learning (read: less messy). While others can be reserved for special, fun, exciting days for learning as well!
1. Sandpaper or Textured Letters
To engage more of your child’s brain and help him/her learn in a deeper way, have your child say the letter name and sound while he/she traces the raised shape of the textured letter in correct order and formation.
This hands-on activity allows children to experience the shape, movement, and formation of letters, reinforcing their understanding and muscle memory. Following this tactile pathway while feeling the response of the material on their fingers also helps generate multi-sensory connections with the visual and auditory stimuli.
DIY Texture Letters
If you are the creative type with lots of extra time on your hands, create your own textured material letters here: LINK.
These raised, textured letters can also be put up as a letter-sound wall so that children can “feel” the letters during purposeful play time.
2. Play-doh or Clay
Manipulating Play-Doh or clay offers learners a hands-on approach to letter formation and word building. It helps strengthen fine motor skills while providing a sensory experience that aids in memorization and reinforcement of phonics concepts.
Play-doh Phonemes/Spelling Patterns
Steps with Play-doh with an Auditory Phoneme Drill:
1. Adult says the phoneme sound, such as /ch/.
2. The child repeats the sound and recalls the letters that work together to make it verbally.
3. The child forms the letters by manipulating the play-doh.
4. IMPORTANT STEP! The child traces with his/her pointer and middle finger over the letters while saying their names and then underlines the whole phoneme and says, “c-h spells /ch/.”
Steps with Play-doh with an Auditory Sound to Letter Drill:
1. Adult say the sound, “/uh/.”
2. The child repeats the sound and recalls what letter makes the sound.
3. The child forms the letter “u” with play-doh, while saying, “u says /uh/.”
4. IMPORTANT STEP! The child traces the letter “u” created with play-doh and says, “u says /u/.”
Here a friend made a “u” for the sound /uh/, traced it with his fingers, and added the kinesthetic component of tracing his cool car over it in the proper formation as well!
3. Sand, Salt, or Treasure Box Trays
Cover the bottom of a shallow tray or container with sand for children to practice spelling words or phonemes. When the child traces with a finger in the sand while saying the letter name and sound (or phoneme letters and sound), he or she will receive the tactile input and also see the visual outline of the letters in the sand. This reinforces muscle memory and phonics knowledge in a tactile and visual way both.
We enjoyed creating personalized treasure box sand trays for our literary studies by painting our own boxes to have more ownership. Each child was energized to decorate his or her own box in a unique fashion. Then we filled the boxes with various colors of sand. You can also add gems! Choice is always good! It’s not for the faint, of heart, but you can also include glitter. 🙂
Finally, we added a few “sh”-ells to go with this particular phoneme, as we were practicing the spelling pattern and sound for “sh”. The kids had so much fun! They were able to reuse these boxes for various phonemes and keep it fresh!
See the video below for an example of how this was used in one lesson:
4. Shaving Cream
We have a lot of fun tracing our letters in shaving cream! I always give reminders at the start that we don’t touch or eyes, mouths, or clothing. This is very exciting for the children and also produces a great result of being able to see the letters visually.
5. Paint in a Bag
Contain the mess while still seeing the visual outline of the letter. Make sure to say the letter name and sound while you make them! Seal the top of the bag with tape to contain the paint. A little paint goes a long way on this one. Just use enough to lightly cover the bottom of the bag so that your child can still see his/her letter when formed.
6. Soft Fabrics, Blanket, or Carpet
Including textured fabrics such as velvet, fur, or bumpy materials can make the learning process more engaging and interactive. Learners can touch and feel these fabrics while exploring letters, words, or textures associated with different phonics elements. A favorite blanket, an interesting carpet or carpet square, or fabrics chosen from a local craft store can all be engaging and support the multi-sensory, tactile cause.
7. Favorite Stuffed (or Real) Animals!
Stuffed animals provide comfort and interest, while their soft or fluffy textures are perfect for children to trace their fingers over! I often have children in my online Orton Gillingham Animal Lovers Science of Reading for Dyslexia class bring stuffed animals or animal toys to trace their fingers over when they say their new phonemes. They love it! They can also trace on their own “paw” or hand. These are fun ways to provide that sensory input and help children remember and make strong connections with a smile on their faces!
8. Plastic Needlepoint Canvas
Plastic needlepoint canvas can be found locally at many craft stores and is very cost-effective. This is an excellent choice for a textured material for learners that are ready for “red” words. These “red” words refer to non-phonetic words or words that cannot be easily “sounded out” with the current knowledge the student has in phonemes/spelling patterns. For example, the word “of” looks like it would be sounded out as /off/, and is not spelled the way it phonetically sounds to our ear, as “uv”. However, we see this word all over in our language. People like to say that the English language is ‘tricky’, but these multi-sensory strategies really help!
Red Word Tactile Steps:
1. Stop at the “red” word, like we stop at a stop sign.
2. Write or trace the red word 3 times with a red pencil or marker. Say each letter while you write or trace each letter. Then underline the whole word and say the whole word.
3. Place the tactile needlepoint canvas over the written red word and trace your finger over each letter while you say each letter. Then underline the whole word with your finger and say the whole word.
9. TacScreen (for ipads or tablets!)
The TacScreen is an awesome overlay for the screens of ipads or tablets. Kids can play their favorite tracing games and listen to the sounds while also getting tactile input back on their fingertips the whole time! The tactile screen can also be removed from the tablet and used on vertical surfaces to provide more opportunities for growth!
10. Tracing on skin (back of hand, knee, palm)
Tactile learning doesn’t have to be expensive! Even in my online classes, I encourage children to trace with two fingers on their palm, the back of their hand, their knee, or the table/desk around them. Any tactile input is very helpful for all learners, but especially those with dyslexia. Do your child a favor today and pick out some sweet, fun materials together that they like to touch and feel. They will learn exponentially with all of the multisensory input!
When it comes to teaching children with dyslexia, incorporating tactile learning strategies using the Orton-Gillingham approach can be incredibly beneficial. By engaging their sense of touch, these strategies help build essential reading and writing skills while promoting a deeper understanding of language in a fun way.
Remember that every child is beautifully and wonderfully unique, so feel free to adapt these strategies to suit individual needs and preferences. Some will like and while others will like a softer texture.
By embracing multi-sensory techniques, we can empower children with dyslexia to unlock their full potential and thrive academically with great joy and confidence!
Be blessed, breathe, and enjoy your great creations!
Created with joy,
Stephanie Joy
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