Word Mapping Matters!

The foundation of learning to read and spell is understanding how phonemes (speech sounds) are represented in print with letters (graphemes). Some children have such strong phonemic awareness—the ability to hear the smallest sound units, recognise their order, blend, and manipulate them—that they don’t need any phonics instruction. Their pattern-seeking brains figure it out naturally. Some children need just a little instruction, while others struggle because they can’t hear those sounds (i.e., they have poor phonemic awareness). Even if they have good memories and can recall a sound when they see a letter, they can’t progress much further. Alfie and Luca are examples of what happens when children enter a system not designed for autistic, ADHD or dyslexic minds, if they have poor phonemic awareness. Many within the system believe that synthetic phonics programmes address this, but this is unfortunately not the case - even though we want children to connect phonemes with graphemes (the goal of phonics instruction)  
 

There is little point in saying "sssss" when you see the letter /s/ (es), "ah" when you see the letter /a/, or "puh" when you see the letter /p/ if you can’t blend those sounds together to form the word 'sap' - even if you know the word. And if you can’t hear the sounds, spelling becomes almost impossible—unless you memorise words by remembering the sequence of letter names and their order on the page. But that means you only know how to spell that specific word, which isn’t how our brains are designed to read. Specific work is needed. You may also get the order mixed up. Our brains use sound-to-letter correspondences to build an awareness of how these patterns work, in order to read with fluency and comprehension. If the word mapping part isn't easy, there is too much working memory being used to be able to think about WHAT you are decoding - and very quickly you have lost track. Children can painstakingly decode words through a sentence and then have no recollection of the words, enough to repet the sentence.
And a skilled reader and speller does this with 350+ correspondences! Even when an entire synthetic phonics programme is taught—such as the old DfE Letters and Sounds programme—and the GPCs are tested in the Phonics Screening Check (PSC), students only learn around 100 correspondences. That’s not enough to become a skilled reader. The purpose is to kick-start the process so that children can begin to self-teach, spotting patterns and discovering more correspondences by using cues.

For example, if a child sees a picture of an orange alongside the written word orange, they will likely recognise the /o/, /r/, /n/, and possibly the /ge/. By decoding the word, they realise they have just self-taught another phoneme that the grapheme /a/ can map to! The letter a actually maps to nine different sounds, but only two or three are taught in synthetic phonics. To become proficient readers and spellers, children must engage in this discovery process to understand the correspondences not covered in synthetic phonics instruction. Using visual and contextual cues while being exposed to a wide variety of text, in a scaffolded way, enables this learning to take place.

This is why children start the 36 pre-readers after completing the Purple Code Level. These books introduce high-frequency words in a repetitive and predictable way (e.g., the, is, on, a, to, was), even if they contain correspondences not taught in the phonics sequence. However, we reduce the need for deduction by explicitly showing the graphemes and their sound values. This builds confidence and reduces mapping errors.

By the end of the 52 Monster Mapped books (36 pre-readers and 16 introduction books), children no longer need words to be Monster Mapped because they have internalised enough high-frequency GPCs and words to self-teach. However, we continue to scaffold their learning! Activities like Speedy Paired Code Mapping ensure that children understand word mapping.

The GPCs and high-frequency words are further reinforced through The Monster Spelling Piano app, allowing children to practise independently.

We are ensuring that children develop such strong phonemic awareness that they can do what naturally skilled readers have always done—learn to read and spell with little to no instruction, regardless of what is being used in schools at the time. This is often overlooked: some children, due to their innate skills, will never struggle, no matter what reading method is in place or what research suggests. The key is understanding why and ensuring that all children receive the same advantages.

This is especially important for children with poor phonemic awareness at school entry (hence our focus on phonemic awareness screening and Phase 1!), as well as non-speaking children, those with different accents, or those who speak very little English. Phase 1 provides the foundation all children need to be able to start self-teaching—regardless of how phonics is taught (or whether it is taught at all).
All they need is:

• Strong phonemic awareness (using Duck Hands, Lines and Numbers, and the ability to explain Monster choices).

• Knowledge of the GPCs within the four Code Levels (using chant videos if time is limited).

• The ability to map as many high-frequency words as possible!

• Vocabulary knowledge of the words being explored
   

These high-frequency words make up the majority of the words children need to read and write—not just words that are decodable using the GPCs from the four Code Levels. If you want to see amazing writing outcomes, children must be using far more than the correspondences taught in synthetic phonics. The DfE is wrong to ask teachers to limit exposure to high-frequency words (often called ‘exception words’). Children need to explore more of them, at a faster pace, earlier.

It’s only when educators spend all day teaching Reception-aged children that they realise this. Many policymakers and decision-makers never experience this first-hand, nor do they visit classrooms where teachers are doing an outstanding job. But to make this happen, teachers need technology. They cannot manually ensure that children recognise and blend 100+ GPCs within six months and learn to read and spell 400+ high-frequency words before the end of Reception. It’s simply not possible for a human to manage this alone. Why are they still expected to—especially in this day and age?
 

So join our community of word mappers and explore speech sounds and their sound pics for all words using the Code Mapping Tool (for grapheme segmentation) and Phonemies (to show expected sound values). Through this discovery process, we support learners as long as necessary—but no longer than needed. We want them to continue as pattern seekers, whether reading Dr Seuss or Shakespeare.
 

Word Mapping Mastery matters because it glues together speech sounds, spelling, and meaning—the three key elements known to facilitate orthographic mapping, the most current theory of how children learn to read. (Kilpatrick,2015; Torgesen, 2004b, p.36)

What’s BRILLIANT for parents of children who haven’t yet started school is that they don’t need to follow the GPC learning sequence! We introduce the Green Code Level after Phase 1 activities in the satpin handbook, but the main focus is on mapping words that are relevant and interesting to the children. They will naturally bring it all together!

This may surprise people—and it challenges existing theories of instruction. However, what we know about how children learn to read, as outlined in the body of research known as the Science of Reading, is reinforced through this approach.

The primary focus is actually on phonemic awareness, phonological working memory (they will follow the monster sounds to say the word for really long words—and even spell long words using monster sounds!), and vocabulary development. Parents can read books to their children and pause to explore random words that matter—without any need to follow a GPC learning sequence. Children stay engaged because everything is meaningful to them. They can also start the 36 pre-readers much earlier!

Most will become skilled readers before starting school—not because that was the aim, but as a fantastic by-product of this rich exposure to letters and sounds using the whole code, rather than just a small section of it. With no restrictions, we can also explore etymology and morphology, further deepening their understanding of language. It is liberating! Parents learn WITH their child - often having no conscious knowledge of the structure of the words they read without conscious effort daily! We are embracing an 'upstream mindset'! 

 

• David A. Kilpatrick (2015). Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties. John Wiley & Sons.

• Joseph K. Torgesen (2004b). Preventing Early Reading Failure and Its Devastating Downward Spiral. American Educator, 28(3), p.36