Teaching Aid Having Tactile Feedback

The present invention relates generally to a set of characters which serve as a teaching aid providing tactile and visual cues as to the identity of the individual characters of the set and, more particularly, to a set of letters of the alphabet wherein each letter is formed from like smaller raised-print letters.

It is well known that young children's sense of touch is well developed; that is, young children can understand and retain much more about an object after they have handled it than if they had only looked at it. Several prior art educational aids and methods take advantage of this characteristic; typically in combination with either or both audio and visual cues. For example, a globe of the world will have the different land masses and countries outlined either by slightly depressed or raised borders as well as being colored in such a manner that no two countries of the same color are adjacent each other.

One prior art teaching aid known as "sandpaper letters" consists of a set of the 26 letters of the English alphabet. Each letter is formed by depositing an amount of adhesive on a plastic plate in the form of the desired letter and then spreading fine sand or the like over the adhesive. When the adhesive drys, a letter is formed which one can feel or trace with the fingers. These sand letters are available in upper and lower case and in block, script or other print forms.

In accordance with the present invention, letters or other characters are formed by filling in the outline of a desired letter with much smaller raised-print like letters to create a textured letter which provides tactile feedback when traced with a finger to reinforce both visual and audio cues of the identity of the letter or character. To reinforce the association between those letters having very different upper and lower case representations, upper case letter outlines may be filled with tiny raised-print like lower case letters and the lower case letter outlines may be filled with tiny raised-print upper case letters. The textured letters of the present invention may also be combined with audio cues such as an instructor or audio recording speaking the names of the letters or additional visual cues may also be utilized such as an accompanying picture of a well known object with its name beginning with the textured letter. The textured letters of the present invention are printed by standard processes, such as a thermographic process, to provide character sets which are less complex and easier to produce and, hence, less expensive than the prior art sand letters.

FIGS. 1a-1d are a graphical representation of a series of letters formed in accordance with the principle of the present invention;

FIG. 2a is a graphical representation of the letter A formed in accordance with a second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2b is a graphical representation of the numeral one formed in accordance with the principles of the present invention; and

FIGS. 3a and 3b illustrate two pages of a booklet-form teaching aid incorporating the present invention.

Referring now to FIGS. 1a-1d, a series of letters representing the English alphabet formed according to the principles of the present invention is shown. As shown in FIG. 1a, the upper case representation of the English letter "A" 10 is formed by arranging a number of relatively small lower case letters "a" 11 such that the lower case letters 11 form a filled-in outline which provides a visual perception of the letter "A" 10. The lower case letters 11 are printed utilizing a thermographic process or other suitable raised-print process to provide raised letters which protrude slightly from the surface of the paper or other media which may be used. Thus a character, the letter "A" 10 in this example, is formed which provides a visual perception of its identity and tactile feedback when the character is felt or traced with a finger to reinforce that visual perception. For a child, especially when the child is too young to hold a pencil or stylus, tracing with the fingers provides a first step towards learning to write. Utilizing lower case letters 11 to fill in the outline of the upper case letter 10 also reinforces the association between those letters with very different upper and lower case representations.

In a similar fashion, the lower case representation of the letter "a" 13 is formed by arranging a number of relatively small upper case letters "A" 15 to form a filled-in outline of a lower case letter "a" 13. As shown in FIGS. 1b-1d, the remaining letters of the alphabet or other set of characters are similarly formed.

The spacing of the smaller letters, the lower case letters "a" 11, for example, may be adjusted to allow a student to color in the background thus highlighting the large letter, the upper case letter "A" 10, for example, formed by the prearranged small letters. Alternatively, a lightly shaded large letter, "Z", for example, may be first printed by any standard printing process, such as a half-tone offset process, prior to printing the small letters, "z", for example, to provide a colored representation of the large letter as shown in FIG. 1d.

Referring now also to FIG. 2a, a second preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown. The upper case English letter "A" 20 is formed by arranging a number of relatively small upper case letters "a" 21 in such a manner that a filled-in outline of the English letter "A" 20 is provided. As described hereinabove, the small upper case letters 21 are printed using a thermographic process to produce raised print which protrudes slightly from the surface of the media thus allowing the outline of the large letter 20 and the shape of the individual small letters 21 to be perceived by touch. As shown in FIG. 2b, other characters such as numerals may also be formed in a similar manner.

Referring now also to FIGS. 3a and 3b, two pages from a booklet-form teaching aid incorporating the present invention are shown. FIG. 3a illustrates the booklet opened to the page having the English letter "A" illustrated. The left-hand page 30 has the upper case and lower case letters 31 and 33, respectively, printed on it in accordance with the present invention while the facing, right-hand page 32 depicts an ant 35, the word "ant" 37 spelled out and repeats the upper and lower case letters "Aa" 39. The letters along with the animal or object pictured on the facing page may be colored as described hereinabove; further the letters may be color-coded, one color for vowels and a second color for consonants. The animal or object pictured on the facing, right-hand page is chosen to provide the student with the proper sound of the letter it is representing. Thus the booklet, when used with a human instructor or a computer which is programmed to speak and pronounce the letters, provides a teaching aid which successfully integrates all three sensory cues: touch, audio and visual. A sheet of tracing paper 36, as shown in FIG. 3b, may be included between the pages 30, 32 to allow the student to make a rubbing of the images of letters 31, 33.

The present invention has been described herein by way of example only and it will be appreciated that many variations are possible. For example, the character sets thus formed are not restricted to letters or to the English language; any set of characters in any language may be formed.