_Exercises._ In teaching the letters of the alphabet, we begin with the _vowels_ and proceed to the consonants, pronouncing the _sound_, not the name. In the case of the consonants, we immediately unite the sound with one of the vowel sounds, repeating the syllable according to the usual phonetic method.
The teaching proceeds according to the three periods already illustrated.
_First._ Association of the visual and muscular-tactile sensation with the letter sound.
The directress presents to the child two of the cards upon which vowels are mounted (or two of the consonants, as the case may be). Let us suppose that we present the letters i and o, saying, "This is i! This is o!" As soon as we have given the sound of a letter, we have the child trace it, taking care to show him _how_ to trace it, and if necessary guiding the index finger of his right hand over the sandpaper letter _in the sense of writing_.
"_Knowing how to trace_" will consist in _knowing the direction_ in which a given graphic sign must be followed.
The child learns quickly, and his finger, already expert in the tactile exercise, _is led_, by the slight roughness of the fine sandpaper, over the exact track of the letter. _He may then repeat indefinitely_ the movements necessary to produce the letters of the alphabet, without the fear of the mistakes of which a child writing with a pencil for the first time is so conscious. If he deviates, the smoothness of the card immediately warns him of his error.
The children, as soon as they have become at all expert in this tracing of the letters, take great pleasure in repeating it _with closed eyes_, letting the sandpaper lead them in following the form which they do not see. Thus the perception will be established by the direct muscular-tactile sensation of the letter. In other words, it is no longer the visual image of the letter, but the _tactile sensation_, which guides the hand of the child in these movements, which thus become fixed in the muscular memory.
There develop, contemporaneously, three sensations when the directress _shows the letter_ to the child and has him trace it; the visual sensation, the tactile sensation, and the muscular sensation. In this way the _image of the graphic sign_ is fixed _in a much shorter space of time_ than when it was, according to ordinary methods, acquired only through the visual image. It will be found that the _muscular memory_ is in the young child the most tenacious and, at the same time, the most ready. Indeed, he sometimes recognises the letters by touching them, when he cannot do so by looking at them. These images are, besides all this, contemporaneously associated with the alphabetical sound.