"touch" helps learning...

http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1387.htm

So... I've read in articles from teh International Dyslexia Association that there's a dearth of support for multisensory instruction in reading - here's some support. Just using visual cues for learning the connection between a symbol and a sound isn't as effective as including "touch." Hard to tell from the description, but it would seem that they used the time honored strategy of tracing the shape (as in the assorted methods involving tracing letters in sand or hair gel or whatever's handy :))