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Many years ago I prepared a paper for a professional conference entitled "Learning to Read by Writing." The method was intended for little children and employed all kinds of ways to "write," including the use of labelers with bright-colored plastic strips, magnetic letters, stencils, wood alphabet blocks, and other devices. I have invited children to print bright labels to identify and stick on my nose, chin, shoes, belt and other accessible body parts and clothing, as well as on things around a school room or a house.

Now years have gone by but our newest little grandchildren still giggle as they label all kinds of things around our cabin. One little grandchild likes to make fun of the name "Wendell," affixing the label "Window" to me.

The best way to learn NuSpel—aside from figuring out AlphaDoodles, etc.—is to write it. The writing doesn't have to be original. Write anything at hand in NuSpel, from jokes to riddles to anecdotes to cartoons. Do it in print letters or long hand, following the characters given in the NuSpel Power Alphabet Chart . Or get a font for your Macintosh or PC by following the instructions given below. You are urged to send us your best efforts for publication in The NuSpel Newsletter web pages, along with your comments and suggestions. Submit them using a NuSpel font (see below) or send them in OldSpel (faxed to 435-654-4429 or by snail-mail and we will convert them or scan them and save them in .gif for presentation on the web.

The chart below indicates only the new NuSpel characters and their keyboard locations. The traditional 26 letters are located on the exactly as at present. Their phonetic values, however, may be different. For example, is always the phoneme /g/ as in <go>, never as in OldSpel <gem>. The exclusively nu characters employ the number/symbol keys together with the ` , ~ , = , +, [ , { , ] , } , and \ , | keys.

On Macintoshes, thanks to the Option key, it is possible to have a complete set of
both OldSpel and NuSpel characters on the same font. The PC Alt key doesn't function in like manner, so the solution is to use one font for NuSpel and switch to a companion one for the input of numbers and symbols !, @, #, etc. In most documents, numbers are needed only for typing in the date and address, so perhaps this may be considered a minor inconvenience. Most stylists frown on the excessive use of !, so having to switch to a different font for this may actually improve your style!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For page numbers, be sure to select an OldSpel font.

Our NuSpel characters were created using the "Fontographer," available from MacroMedia, (415) 252-9080, Fax (972) 680-0535. With a little practice, you too will be able to display your creativity through generating all kinds of attractive, weird or striking fonts in both OldSpel and NuSpel. Please send us samples of your NuSpel fonts for possible sharing with others through our non-profit organization. NuSpel fonts are reduced character sets, consisting of 99 out of a possible 256.

Not included with other literacy materials because they can be requested free of charge by e-mail (info@nuspel.org) and attached to the reply. (This works with Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, but not all messaging services.) Be sure to specify PC or Mac. Once you have the fonts installed on your computer (See your computer manual for instructions), they may be used with any major word processor.

To send NuSpel texts over the internet, both the sender and the receiver must have NuSpel fonts on their hard drives, selecting the fonts from their messaging services "Edit/Preferences" pull-down menu under "Language/Fonts" or "Appearance"/"Fonts". Your NuSpel texts may also be transmitted over the internet by converting them to Adobe Acrobat PDF files and attaching them to e-mails. You will need the Adobe Acrobat PDF Writer for this. Check it out at www.adobe.com.