In the third stage of my method for writing, that is, composition of speech, is included the analysis of the word not only into signs, but into the component sounds; the signs representing its translation. The child, that is, divides the heard word which he perceives integrally as a word, knowing also its meanings, into sounds and syllables.
Let me call attention to the following diagram which represents the interrelation of the two mechanisms for writing and for articulate speech.
The peripheric channels are indicated by heavy lines; the central channels of association by dotted lines; and those referring to association in relation to the development of the heard speech by light lines.
E ear; So auditory centre of sounds; Sy auditory centre of syllables; W auditory centre of word; M motor centre of the articulate speech; T external organs of articulate speech (tongue); H external organs of writing (hand); MC motor centre of writing; VC visual centre of graphic signs; V organ of vision.
Whereas in the development of spoken language the sound composing the word might be imperfectly perceived, here in the teaching of the graphic sign corresponding to the sound (which teaching consists in presenting to the child a sandpaper letter, naming it distinctly and making the child see it and touch it), not only is the perception of the heard sound clearly fixed—separately and clearly—but this perception is associated with two others: the centro-motor perception and the centro-visual perception of the written sign.
The triangle VC, MC, So represents the association of three sensations in relation with the analysis of speech.
When the letter is presented to the child and he is made to touch and see it, while it is being named, the centripetal channels ESo; H, MC, So; V, VC, So are acting and when the child is made to name the letter, alone or accompanied by a vowel, the external stimulus acts in V and passes through the channels V, VC, So, M, T; and V, CV, So, Sy, M, T.
When these channels of association have been established by presenting visual stimuli in the graphic sign, the corresponding movements of articulate language can be provoked and studied one by one in their defects; while, by maintaining the visual stimulus of the graphic sign which provokes articulation and accompanying it by the auditory stimulus of the corresponding sound uttered by the teacher, their articulation can be perfected; this articulation is by innate conditions connected with the heard speech; that is, in the course of the pronunciation provoked by the visual stimulus, and during the repetition of the relative movements of the organs of language, the auditory stimulus which is introduced into the exercise contributes to the perfecting of the pronunciation of the isolated or syllabic sounds composing the spoken word.
When later the child writes under dictation, translating into signs the sounds of speech, he analyses the heard speech into its sounds, translating them into graphic movements through channels already rendered permeable by the corresponding muscular sensations.