Supplementary Materials

Sensory-motor learning

The children will get to know the object of learning using all their senses:

• Listening: i.e. aural identification of letter positions within a word; listening to stories which focus on the new letter to be learned.
• Seeing: i.e. recognizing certain letters within a cluster of many letters; assigning pictures to letters and vice versa.
• Moving: i.e. forming letters using the body; responding to letter positions by moving; linking of movement and sound quality (for example for long and short vowels); forming words through hopping games.
• Touching: i.e. touching of wooden letters in little cloth bags, touching of letters laid out in threads or ropes; working with sand trays.
• Being touched: i.e. sensory stimulation of the back using different qualities of touch (for example spot or area); feeling of letters which are being written onto the back by another child.

Games

Often children with learning impediments in the cognitive area will find access to course contents by playing games.

• Well-known children’s and party games are being turned into functional learning games for repeating, practicing and reinforcing of what has been learned.
• Many games contain elements of movement therapy.
• In addition to the reading and writing abilities being practiced by playing the corresponding game, all learning games promote communication and linguistic capabilities of expression within the group.

Linking of language, music and movement

• The learning process and the emotional anchoring of what has been learned is sustainably supported by the coordination of movement and rhythm of speech/song. For this reason, for example, the movements of writing are connected to speaking verses, the swinging exercises accompanied by song lines.
• Moreover, there are moving songs which have been composed especially for this teaching program as well as tonal stories, thematically related to the stories of the Myrtel and Bo story book.
• Rhythmic speaking and singing, the interconnection of language, music and movement promote the perception of language and language processing.
• Finger games and counting-out-rhymes awaken a feeling for the rhythm of the language and prepare the process of learning how to read.
• Role-playsand drama games help reduce speech inhibitions, improve linguistic capabilities of expression and train perception of the body.

Promoting and Challenging Through Individualized Teaching

To promote and challenge with demanding, individually combinable and aesthetically appealing booklets.

The multisensory, integrative-method, learning system "Myrtel and Bo" contains the following differing approaches to teaching how to read and write:

• Analysis and synthesis combined with music and movement
• Learning how to read by syllables
• Learning how to read by using illustrations of speech movements

In this way each child finds his or her individual way of learning how to read and write.

Parallel to the basic materials, the following materials which promote and challenge the child offer each child the opportunity to extensively practice the necessary key abilities in learning how to read and write.

Each module contains a different emphasis of promoting and/or challenging.

By the use of already available title pages, the teacher can assemble, as needed, an individual booklet for the child containing the necessary exercises which promote and challenge the child on his or her individual learning path.

The material has been conceived to be used for differentiation

• in elementary school
• in special ed schools
• in learning groups consisting of children of different grade levels
• in pre-school classes and in classes integrating both normal and socially-challenged children
• for individualized, holistic teaching