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Checking the Code

When a lot of working memory is used up decoding single words, there isn’t enough left to focus on the meaning of the words or reach the self-teaching phase, which is essential for reading for pleasure. My goal in life is for more children to experience the joy of reading, so how could I not dedicate so much of my life to helping children reach the self-teaching phase? To achieve that, word mapping needs to be made easier.


I created an approach (Speech Sound Pics) in Australia that enables at least 95% of children to reach the self-teaching phase by the middle of Year 1. I’m also developing technology so children can map words visually and linguistically from birth, allowing most to naturally learn to read and spell well before starting school—you can’t stop them once they catch the Monster Mapping bug!

However, the most important work is arguably supporting teachers to understand Word Mapping so they can pass it on, regardless of the school programmes in place and because they are able to combine their understanding of the written code with their knowledge of their unique learners, and their interests!

For over 15 years, Miss Emma has been mapping words to help children learn them more quickly and easily!

In Australia, children are "benchmarked" using PM levelled readers, which contain many high-frequency words that cannot be decoded with the GPCs taught in systematic phonics instruction.

With the Code Mapping Tool, these words are mapped to show the graphemes, and Miss Emma provides voiceovers so that children can hear the phonemes (speech sounds).

These resources are available in the ICRWY Lessons app. There are over 400 Mapped Words in the HFW section

Duck Hands are used from left to right to segment the smallest sound units (phonemes) This isn't as simple as it sounds, as many sounds aren't the same at the beginning as the end but are still the smallest unit eg when saying the sound this Phonemie (Speech Sound Monster) makes. Can you hear that the sound changes? The Speech Sound Clouds show the 'pictures of the sounds' that map with this phoneme - the commonly used ones (covered in our Code Levels) are shown on the outside. We will explore all, while mapping words throughout the day! 

Speech Sound Clouds from The Reading Hut
MyWordz Tech
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When tasked with mapping words—such as names—teachers often realise that their word mapping skills are not as proficient as they had expected. This is entirely normal!
Most teachers, as skilled readers, experience what can be termed orthographic interference. They must learn to 'switch off' the visual letters and focus more on the sounds. For example, teachers are so accustomed to thinking of one phoneme when they see the letter 'a' that they might face confusion when mapping a name like "Lara" which is mapped L/a/r/a - neither /a/ maps with the sound they first teach in their phonics lessons. Ironically, they may also miss that the second phoneme is pronounced the same as the third letter's name!

Anne Castles and Max Coltheart (2004) explored whether there is a causal link between phonological awareness and success in learning to read. In their paper, they described how children who have started learning phonics may already show signs of confusion. They cited Ehri and Wilce (1980) who showed that fourth graders report more phonemes in a word such as pitch than in one with fewer letters such as rich, although the number of phonemes is the same in both cases. One would expect them to have been taught /ch/ as a grapheme but not /tch/ and that many had not made that connection. Similarly, children of this age have more difficulty in deleting the /f/ sound from a spoken word such as laughter than from one such as rafter, presumably because of the lack of a direct letter referent in the former case (Castles, Holmes, Neath, & Kinoshita, 2003). 

However, I argue that this confusion stems from limited word mapping instruction, which can lead to orthographic interference. When children map words with us from birth and explore Speech Sound Clouds, they don’t face this challenge. Similarly, teachers who use our approach overcome their own orthographic interference, enabling them to map words correctly and better support their students.

Castles and Coltheart - phonemes in rich and pitch

The written code is not a straightforward transcription of speech for a wide range of reasons, but when you take this approach to word mapping, those discrepancies become part of daily discussions. These discussions around word mapping are invaluable. When training teachers, I show them how to map words with children using a universal written code that isn't 'black and white.' We avoid using 'rules' or terms that children may not understand; the terminology and activities are accessible even to 3-year-olds. This is important.
 

Despite people learning and using English all over the world, with different accents, we can still understand each other’s English! We can thank Samuel Johnson for this. Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, aimed to provide accurate definitions of words and establish a standard, universal pronunciation guide for English. He compiled words from various sources like Hooker’s Bible and Shakespeare and standardised pronunciation through phonetic spellings. Although he recognised the challenges and knew it wasn’t perfect, he created a way for everyone to know the 'correct' spelling of English words.
 

Most have heard of Webster’s Dictionaries—Webster aimed to reform the teaching of spoken and written English, building on Johnson’s work and his vision that a writing system is a code for the sounds of a language. Webster said, “Letters are the marks of sounds,” and he believed there were 39 sounds. He wrote the mappings both ways: from each sound to its various spellings, and from each letter or group of letters to the sounds they could represent. However, instead of organising his work by sounds, he set it out alphabetically, likely because representing sounds in print is difficult—this is why the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is such a fantastic tool.
 

The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) was developed in the late 19th century by a group of linguists led by Paul Passy, a French linguist and member of the International Phonetic Association. The goal was to create a standardised system that could represent the sounds of all languages in a consistent way, ensuring that pronunciation could be recorded and taught without the ambiguity of traditional spelling systems. Each symbol in the IPA corresponds to a specific sound, or phoneme, making it possible to accurately describe speech across different languages and accents.
 

This is especially useful for English, with its opaque orthography. With the IPA, every sound in a word can be represented precisely, eliminating confusion. For instance, the different sounds represented by the letter 'a' in 'ant' and 'father' etc are made clear with distinct IPA symbols. This is why the IPA is an invaluable tool for teachers and learners of language—it allows us to bypass the complexities of written English and focus directly on the sounds when this is useful, for example if the focus is only on phonemic awareness and developing the awareness of phonemes in words.

  • any / eni:/

  • orange /ɒrɪndʒ/

  • was / wɒz/

  • table / teɪbəl/

  • scary / skeəri/

  • father / fɑːðə/

  • water / wɔːtə/

  • another /ənʌðə/

By integrating the IPA into word mapping, teachers can check the mapping of words. Phonemies are alternatives to phonetic symbols for children. The 'Speech Sound Monster' give a visual representation - a symbol for a phoneme - and allow children to understand how words are structured, making the process of learning to read and spell clearer and more logical. This is crucial because mastering word mapping early on can significantly improve a child’s ability to read fluently and independently, setting them up for lifelong literacy success.

Phonemies also make learning the Basic Code easier as when the graphemes are shown in isolation (rather than in a word) as they know the 'sound' each grapheme represents. When children are shown letters and told to say a sound this becomes confusing when it DOESN'T map with that phoneme in a word.  

Flowers on Wood
Word Mapping Mastery by Emma Hartnell-Baker

Word Mapping Mastery

 

Every Child an Avid Reader by 7

 

Written by the Neurodivergent Reading Whisperer®

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