Interesting how often this quote from Kozloff (and idea) is shared as if true. It’s been proven false - by 5 year olds in Australia using the Speech Sound Pics Approach. Being speech sound detectives and exploring the code - thinking! - is at the heart of the approach. Make a bod statement like this and we set out to find out if it's true or not. We are explorers! We love exploring Speech Sound Connections.

Kozloff got this idea from someone with dodgy data. Just because someone with ‘Dr’ as a title says something and uses big numbers don’t just accept it. Take a scientific worldview!! As they should have.

That’s what we do with our kids. We are guiding them to think for themselves! They enjoy exploring that speech sound connection!

We have the full list of every grapheme to phoneme correspondence and are constantly exploring words to find new ones. After mapping words for years very few are discovered - that doesn't stop  us from trying!
The spelling code made visible! Our kids have the whole code on their walls. Our five year old students proved him wrong.
(so proud)

Note that he didn’t say which ten letters? Even if you take the ‘letters’ (graphemes) with the most speech sound (phoneme) correspondences - eg the letter /a/ can map to 9 speech sounds - you still don’t get that number. Even if you include nonsense / pseudo words. Look at the Spelling Cloud Wall and locate every letter - all 26. Even if you know their 'speech sound connection' you may not know their various combinations. We may have 26 letters but these are used in various combinations to create the 350+ 'pictures of the speech sounds' - graphemes within our fabulous spelling code - its opque orthography. So to be able to 'read' that  many words the child needs to know the correspondences  but also have the phonemic awareness and (orthographic) knowledge to apply - and without vocabulary knowledge they can't know the pronunciation (and therefore the correct speech sound connection) 

If this is to encourage phonics instruction? Well those teaching phonics would never teach like that anyway. Look at a phonics program in classrooms and see how many ‘sounds’ are taught for /a/ etc. If they did try to teach all phoneme correspondences the kids would never get to the reading stage as it would take too long (and it’s not how brains learn to read and spell )
The DfE mandates Systematic Synthetic Phonics and has 'validated' 45 that promote the instructional approach to teaching phonics they have decided UK teachers must adopt. These validated SSP programs only cover around 100 of the grapheme to  phoneme correspondences used by skilled readers - and then test them at the end of year 1. They wonder why so many can pass this basic test of around 1/3 of 'the whole code' and yet still can't read 5 years later. 

Our kids are explorers and can see the whole code: Visible Spelling! The Speech Sound Clouds. They can separate fact from fiction. It’s very mathematical - and fun! They explore The Speech Sound Connection daily, and love to prove folks wrong about everything they think about teaching and learning phonics! Including how quickly and easily they learn as so engaged.
Enter a classroom with a Speech Sound Cloud wall and you know you are in a learning environment in which children are encouraged to explore the Speech Sound Connections - regardless of systematic synthetic phonics programme being used. They have  a scientific worldview and even when told how to teach, their desire to focus on what children actually learn can never be diminished! They add to what is mandated - because they are learning whisperers.   

If any teacher of reading and spelling sees this and doesn’t challenge it, they don’t (yet) have a scientific worldview. They’re probably so used to being told what to teach and how to think about phonics that they’re brainwashed to accept this stuff.

Don’t be that teacher! Be the one who sees numbers and statements around word mapping and rolls up their sleeves - with their trusty assistants - to get to the truth. Explore the Speech Sound Connection - further develop your orthographic knowledge!

Miss Emma
Specialist SpLD Teacher Trainer
#neurospectives- Explore the teaching of phonics with a neurodivergent teacher! Free webinar with Patoss now available.
#spellingclouds 

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