The “Sawaru Glyph Phonics Edition” is a haptic reading material consisting of three-dimensional words based on phonics rules. Through “haptic reading,” which involves seeing, speaking aloud, and touching these three-dimensional words, it promotes the integration of spelling and sound memory in the brain, as well as the formation of word shape memory.
The Phonics Edition is the most fundamental resource within the Sawaru Glyph learning program. This approach is particularly beneficial for both children and adults, especially those with dyslexia or other reading and writing difficulties, as it helps them better learn the spellings and shapes of words. By combining visual, haptic, and phonological elements, it lays a strong foundation for improving literacy skills.
Product Contents:
・Alphabet 26 letters (1 sheet)
・One Letter One Sound group (5 sheets)
・Vowel Digraphs group (3 sheets)
・Consonant Digraphs group (3 sheets)
・Blending Sounds group (7 sheets)
・Sight Words (3 sheets)
・Video and audio specialized for haptic reading
・Instruction manual for using Sawaru Glyph
・Test paper for measuring learning outcomes
Product features of the Phonics Edition
Basic Spelling and Phonics Edition is the foundational material that Sawaru Glyph users should start with. In this program, users study three-dimensional words while watching and listening to dedicated audiovisual content, combining touch and oral reading.
This material provides step-by-step haptic reading practice, following phonics rules. It begins with simple sound spellings, progresses to more complex sound spellings, and eventually covers sight words. By leveraging haptic effects, it strengthens the integration of spelling and sound memory. Additionally, chunking spellings helps form word-shape memory.
Effects of the Material
Improved reading fluency
Reduced reading burden
Enhanced recall of spellings
The integration of spelling and sound memory builds the foundation for word recognition, improving reading fluency. This reduces the burden of reading, making it easier than before. For writing and typing, the material enhances the ability to recall spellings, making them easier to remember.
Stages and Levels of the Material
Before using the Highly Imaginable Words and Short Sentences Edition, the phonics edition is used to build basic spelling and sound memory. Through this process, users acquire spelling and sound rules and establish the foundation for word-shape memory.
In the Highly Imaginable Words and Short Sentences Edition, the goal is to further strengthen word-shape memory and promote RAN (Rapid Automatized Naming).
Target Learners
- Children and adults with dyslexia
This material is designed for individuals who struggle to read fluently, feel fatigued when reading, or have difficulty accurately remembering spellings. It is suitable for a wide range of users, from children to adults. - Typically developing children, non-native English-speaking children, and adults
This material (Phonics Edition) is not only for individuals with dyslexia who experience reading difficulties but is also suitable for anyone who wants to efficiently learn the rules of spelling and sound.
Principles and Effects
By utilizing the effects of haptics, Sawaru Glyph promotes fluent reading and enhances four cognitive functions related to letter recall. It helps improve the cognitive vulnerabilities of dyslexia.
Haptics has the following three functions:
- Haptic feedback enhances attention to the target and strengthens memory traces.
- Haptics integrates with visual information in the brain to form concrete, multimodal images.
- Haptics possesses characteristics of both visual representation (parallel) and phonological representation (sequential), serving to connect the two.
By utilizing these functions of haptics, the neural networks involved in reading and writing abilities in the brain are strengthened.
1. Formation of a precise and robust mental image of letter shapes
It has been found that not only seeing letters and symbols, but also engaging with them through haptics while seeing promotes awareness of their shapes, enhancing memory images. By utilizing haptics to interact with the letters, attention is more strongly focused on their shapes, making it easier to leave memory traces. Furthermore, research shows that haptics and vision share a common neural basis in the brain and are cognitively integrated. Incorporating haptics allows for multi-sensory memory encoding.
2. Formation of word form memory (chunking)
By receiving haptic feedback on the spelling (sequence of letters) while reading, chunking of letter sequences in memory is promoted. This enables efficient formation of word form memory. Once the word form memory is established in the mind, it becomes easier to read texts.
3. Formation of associative memory between letters and sounds
Dyslexia often involves difficulty in associating letters with sounds. While memory formation between letters and sounds is promoted by reading aloud alone, the process is further enhanced by combining it with the video and audio resources used in the haptic reading program. By providing simultaneous haptic (touch-based) interaction with letters and auditory information, more effective formation of associative memory between letters and sounds is achieved.
4. The Effect of RAN (Rapid Automatized Naming) Enhancement
RAN（Rapid Automatized Naming） refers to the ability to efficiently retrieve and name visual information, such as pictures or numbers. It is known that children with dyslexia tend to have lower naming speed. Sawaru Glyph is the first program in the world to confirm the improvement of RAN through haptic reading practice. A hypothesis suggests that reading meaningful words while engaging in tactile interaction enables the creation of a bypass within the semantic network, linking the visual lexicon associated with letter and word forms and the phonological lexicon tied to spoken words. This bypass improves the recall of letter forms, which serves as a cognitive cue to facilitate the recall of words (phonological information).
How to Use
- Immediately after watching the visual-audio presentation of a word, touch and read aloud the three-dimensional English word while looking at it.
- Begin haptic reading learning with simple spellings and gradually progress to complex spellings and sight words, following phonics rules based on the forms of alphabetic letters.
- A daily learning session consists of 5 to 6 sheets, taking about 15 minutes. You can study a little every day.
Visual-Audio for Haptic Reading Learning
This is a dedicated audio source for the words used in haptic reading learning. It is created in accordance with phonics rules. By listening to the audio of a word, then looking at, touching, and reading it aloud immediately afterward, learners can strongly reinforce the connection between spelling and sound in memory.
Technology and Copyrights
Sawaru Glyph is not merely a teaching material for haptic reading of embossed letters.
This tool integrates the following four original technologies to enable effective multisensory learning through the use of haptics:
- Font Design Optimized for haptic reading
- Audio-Visual Features for Integrating Spelling and Sound
- Stepwise haptic reading Program
- Analysis and Selection of Image-Rich Words
These technologies support effective learning by utilizing fonts designed for haptic reading and developing audio-visual systems that enhance the connection between letters and sounds. Additionally, the words used in the materials are carefully selected to prioritize semantic processing and facilitate the formation of reading and writing networks.
These technological innovations are protected by international copyrights.
For more details, please refer to the “Technology and Copyrights” page.