There are neural connections between the brain areas that process the visual shapes of objects (this includes letter shapes) and word sounds These 'fuzzy' connections also extend into two nearby motor areas: 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 4th 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 all 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 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)

Writing invisible letter shapes in the air, on a textured board or on a person's back, 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)

Children, taught the Basic (transparent) Code using synthetic phonics, can, very quickly, start writing with confidence, knowing that they, and other people, will be able to read what is written phonetically. 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) Debbie Hepplewhite, an experienced Early Years teacher, 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?
- You should not expect your child to write independently until they have at least the first version of the 40+ letter/s-sound correspondences (Basic code -see Teach your child to read'.). How can they write what they want to say when they don't have the code to produce the sounds of their spoken words?
- Model the writing process and put labels around your room of words that they themselves could be expected to write and read.
- Ask them to spell words at the level of their knowledge by you saying the word very slowly, the individual sounds will 'pop out' all-through-the-spoken-word.
- Don't expect writing to 'emerge' - TEACH THEM!'.

Regular dictations are a very important part of synthetic phonic teaching. Ensure that children know how to write the individual letters out of their own heads. Give them a letter dictation (meaning: say one letter at a time and see if they know how to write each letter). Dictations should consist of words that include the letter/s-sound correspondences that they have learnt so far. If any words or parts of words are included for which the letter/sound correspondences have not been taught then these should be given (write them on the board or a dry-wipe board) to the children.

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www.primaryideas.co.uk/literacy/punctuation.doc Ros Wilson's 'VCOP' Pyramid.

www.candocubes.com/grammar-guides.php#content Basic, on-line grammar guide

www.tes.co.uk/resources/Resource.aspx?resourceId=8031 Kung Fu punctuation

www.myhomelibrary.org Free book plates by famous illustrators,
to print out and use to personalize books.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3894007.stm Babies babble with hands.

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://abcdwordorigins.wordpress.com/ Word origins blog for teachers.

Gender gap? Not when synthetic phonics is used:
www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/education/ins17-00.asp Watson and Johnston: A Seven Year Study of the Effects of Synthetic Phonics Teaching on Reading and Spelling Attainment.
''A common feature of the best work was that boys' progress and achievement did not lag behind girls: an important outcome given the generally weaker performance of boys, especially in writing.'' (Rose Review. 57)

Link to Handwriting | Spelling

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