One Tuesday morning the letter O appeared in our Mędrki group. Green, round, made of foam letters held inside a gymnastic hoop suspended from the ceiling. “Mędrki, we have a new friend” — said Miss Justyna. The Mędrki looked up, smiled and knew: another letter-adventure was ahead of them.
The letter O is special to us, because it is one of the first ones a child’s hand learns to draw with a truly closed curve. The first attempts are usually crooked — the Mędrek starts at the top, goes down, makes a loop, but the line does not close, or it overlaps. Only after a few weeks does the letter O become round, even, “real”. And for that to happen, much, really much earlier, you have to take care of one fundamental thing — brain gym.
In this article we want to tell you what brain gym is, why it is so important for learning to write, and how specifically we work with the Mędrki on each new letter. Because our philosophy is unequivocal: before a Mędrek picks up a pen, their brain has to be ready for it.
Brain gym — what it is and why it works
The term “brain gym” was introduced in the 1970s by American teachers Paul and Gail Dennison. They noticed that children with learning difficulties often have problems with coordinated use of both sides of the body — with crossing the midline. The midline is an imaginary vertical line that divides the body into the left and right side. The left side of the body is controlled by the right brain hemisphere. The right side — by the left hemisphere. Communication between these hemispheres goes through a thick band of nerves called the corpus callosum.
In adults, this band works very efficiently, so the left and right sides of the body cooperate naturally. But in a child — especially aged three to seven — this connection is still being built. A child who has never trained two-handed movements, movements crossing the midline, will later have very specific problems with reading, writing, concentration. Because reading and writing require both hemispheres of the brain to work together — the left recognizes signs, the right arranges them in space; the left controls the writing hand, the right the one that stabilizes the paper.
That is why with the Mędrki, before each contact with a paper letter, we do brain gym. Not to “loosen up the children”, although that too. But to activate both hemispheres at the same time and prepare them for what is about to happen.
What actually happened with the letter O
First stage — introducing the letter. The teacher shows the letter O in the hoop. “What does it remind you of?”. Hania says “a circle”. Marek says “a window”. Kasia says “a zero”. All answers are good — because all of them point to a closed curve. The teacher confirms and says: “today our letter is O. O like okno (window), okulary (glasses), owoc (fruit), oczka (little eyes). Listen, when I say o-o-o-o. What do your lips do?”. The Mędrki try. “Miss, the lips are round!”. Yes, exactly. The letter O is named the way it looks. This is the first phonetic-visual consolidation: the name of the sound + the lip configuration + the shape of the letter.
Second stage — mirrors. Each Mędrek receives a small mirror (with a plastic frame for safety). “Look at your lips, the way you arrange them when saying o-o-o-o”. The Mędrki perform, laugh, make funny faces. This moment, in which the child sees their own lips arranging into “o” — is very important for the development of speech and reading. It builds articulatory awareness — the understanding that the sounds we make have their counterparts in body movements.
Third stage — brain gym. Here happens what is most powerful. The Mędrki stand in a circle, on slightly parted legs, with arms stretched out in front of them. The teacher shows the first exercise: with both hands they “draw” a big O in the air. The left hand draws counter-clockwise, the right hand clockwise. Together. The brain has to send two different signals at the same moment to two different hands — and both hands must come back together at the same point. For a five- and six-year-old this is a considerable challenge. After a few attempts the Mędrki cope better and better.
The next exercise — the lazy figure-eight. The teacher draws in the air with a finger a horizontal figure-eight (the infinity sign) — from the centre, left up, down, to the centre, right up, down, to the centre. The Mędrki imitate, first with one hand, then the other, finally with both. This is a classic brain-gym exercise, excellent for preparing the brain for focused, calm work.
The third exercise — crossing the midline. The Mędrki stand and alternately: right hand touches left knee, left hand touches right knee. We repeat 30 times to the rhythm of music. Both brain hemispheres working at the same time, in a pleasant, motor form. The children laugh, but at the same moment their brains are working hard.
Fourth stage — writing the letter O in sensory masses. The teacher prepared three trays: one with buckwheat groats, one with potato flour, one with rice. Each Mędrek picks a material and writes the letter O with a finger. First very large, then smaller, then smaller still. Each material has a different texture — groats crunch, flour is velvety, rice is harder. Three different tactile signals inscribe the same letter into three different places in the child’s sensory memory.
The most joy was brought by the rice. Why? Because rice scatters, but you can gather it again. This is fascinating to the Mędrki — a material that is at once a drawing medium and a free-play substance. Some Mędrki wrote twenty O’s in the rice, trying smaller and smaller, more and more precise.
Fifth stage — tracing the letter on paper. Only now. After all the previous exercises. Each Mędrek receives a sheet with a large dotted letter O. It has to be traced with a pencil. This last, paper stage usually goes much better for the Mędrki than if they had started from it — because all the earlier work, especially brain gym and writing in masses, has prepared their hand and brain for this precise, controlled work.
What is built in a Mędrek’s brain during such a lesson
Integration of brain hemispheres. This is the foundation on which later learning to read and write is built. A child whose hemispheres cooperate well reads faster, writes more evenly, concentrates better, tires less. Brain gym before letter learning is not “the eccentricity of a modern preschool” — it is a method, supported by neurological research, of preparing the brain for precise work.
Body and direction-of-movement awareness. The letter O requires a movement in a specific direction — most commonly starting from the top, going left, down, right, back to the top. A Mędrek who has earlier drawn big O’s in the air, in mass, in rice, in foam — already has this movement coded in the body. When it comes to drawing on paper, their hand knows what to do. This is kinaesthetic memory — and it works much faster than visual memory.
Articulatory awareness. Looking in the mirror while pronouncing the sound O builds in the child the awareness, key for learning to read, that the sound we produce has a physical shape. This awareness later makes it easier to break down words into sounds, to combine sounds into syllables, and finally — to read syllable by syllable and whole words.
Multisensory encoding. Each successive technique we use to introduce the letter — movement in the air, mirror, groats, flour, rice, paper — is a different sensory channel. The child’s brain encodes the same sign in many places at once. The more such places, the stronger the memory trace. The easier it is for the child to recall what this letter looks like when they see it again.
Patience and movement control. Writing in flour, groats, on paper, requires fine, controlled finger movement. This is the foundation of later calligraphy learning. Mędrki who, throughout the preschool year, regularly wrote in sensory masses, enter first grade with strongly trained finger muscles and the ability to make calm, conscious movements.
Why we don’t start with a pen
Some of you may wonder: why all this brain gym, why groats and rice? Why not just take a pen and a sheet of paper?
Because for a five-year-old, a pen is a very demanding tool. It must be held in a precise, three-finger grip. The pressure must be controlled. It must be guided along a precise trajectory. You have to see what you are doing. All of this requires coordinated work of the muscles of the hand, the eye, the brain. For some children this is a challenge they cannot handle — and then the letter they try to write comes out crooked, shaky, illegible.
If the child’s first contact with a letter is precisely this — a clumsy attempt on paper — the child builds a negative association. “Writing is hard”. “Writing is boring”. “I can’t do it”. This is the worst thing you can do. Because a child who enters first grade with the feeling “I can’t write” will struggle with every subsequent letter.
Our path is different. First the Mędrek gets to know the letter with the whole body (brain gym), with sight (visual introduction), with touch (masses), with hearing (the sound), with articulation (the mirror). Only then do we come to paper — and paper is no longer scary, but the last stage of a well-prepared road. The letter O on paper comes out round. The Mędrek smiles. “I can do it!”.
And that “I can do it” is the most powerful foundation a first-grader can start from.
What a parent can do at home
If your child is at preschool age and you want to support their letter learning, a few ideas for home brain gym and sensory writing:
— Daily figure-eight drawing. In the air, on the kitchen counter, in flour scattered on a plate. First with one hand, then the other, finally with both. Five minutes a day. It works.
— Crossing the midline. Alternating knee-touching with the opposite hand (right-left, left-right). Marching with arm-waving. Children’s yoga exercises. All this builds hemispheric cooperation.
— Writing letters in home-made masses. Flour spread on a plate. Groats poured onto a tray. Salt, sugar, glitter — anything you can draw with a finger. Five to ten minutes a day.
— A mirror while saying letters. “Look how your lips move with A”. “And now with O”. “And with U”. To the child this is a small delight — and at the same time powerful training of articulatory awareness.
— Invent words together. “What words do you know starting with O? Okno, owoc, oczy, okulary, ośmiornica…”. This simple exercise builds phonological awareness and at the same time expands the child’s vocabulary.
— Don’t force the pen. If your five-year-old does not yet want to write on paper, there is no reason to force them. Let them draw in mass, in sand, on a steamed-up window — all of this is good. The paper will come on its own when the child is ready.
What stayed from our letter O
After this lesson, in the evening, parents reported that the Mędrki at home were “writing” the letter O everywhere. On plates. In soup. In the rice from lunch. “Miss, mum called to say my son wrote an O on the bathroom mirror in dad’s shaving cream. We were writing about it!”. Yes, we were writing. And it’s very good that dad did not yell, but was glad his son was practising the letter.
Because that is exactly what we want. For the Mędrek to come back to this letter for another week, two, three. To draw it in different places, on different surfaces, in different ways. So that the brain has time for this letter to settle deeply — not superficially, as after a one-off lesson, but deeply, as after a week of immersion in one sign.
Next in line was A. Then T. Then U. Each different. Each with its own day, its own brain gym, its own sensory immersion. Each with the joy of the Mędrki that they were getting another friend for their growing collection.
Because for us the alphabet is not “a curriculum”. The alphabet is a great collection of friends that the Mędrek gathers throughout their preschool life. And which they will bring into first grade with pride — showing the teacher: “look, I already know M, O, A, T, U… and all the others!”.