ABSTRACT
While the author was directress of the Orthophrenic School at Rome, he/she had already begun to experiment with various didactic means for the teaching of reading and writing. A criticism of the method used by Itard and Seguin for reading and writing seems to the author superfluous. The example of Seguin serves to illustrate the necessity of a special education which shall fit man for observation, and shall direct logical thought. The observation must be absolutely objective, in other words, stripped of preconceptions. The child who looks, recognises, and touches the letters in the manner of writing, prepares himself simultaneously for reading and writing. 'Touching the letters and looking at them at the same time, fixes the image more quickly through the co-operation of the senses. Later, the two facts separate; looking becomes reading; touching becomes writing. According to the type of the individual, some learn to read first, others to write'.
