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The WordMappingMastery.com site is for those training with Emma Hartnell-Baker to support all children in mastering word mapping, enabling them to reach the self-teaching phase where they learn to read and spell by reading. All skilled readers map words, even if they are not aware of having this skill and even if they did not learn to read with phonics. If given an unfamiliar word eg gallimaufry you will instincitvely use word mapping skills. When you can read, you do not need to be aware of how letters and speech sounds connect until you are supporting children who cannot yet read with fluency and comprehension or spell accurately while writing.
 

Anyone can begin with the 10-day Speech Sound Play plan for 4 to 7 year olds, as seen on SpeechSoundPlay.com. This offers adults on-the-job training by demonstrating exactly how the approach works. Simply follow the plan. Everything is mapped out, and all necessary resources are provided. It serves as the essential pre-phonics foundation when synthetic phonics is being used and leads directly into the linguistic and visual phonics taught through the Speech Sound Pics® Approach in schools.
 

Miss Emma also offers a unique 10-week (online) supervision plan for those unsure how to help a child, or children, in KS2. She provides step-by-step guidance to assess and support an instructional casualty, typically a child who has received two years of synthetic phonics instruction but is still unable to read. The child may or may not be neurodivergent. This training is designed to meet the learning needs of both the adult and the child, whether you are a SENDCo, a home educating parent, or a tutor employed to support a child at home. The process of learning to map words in both directions, from speech to print and from print to speech, is not the same for every child, even though all need to be able to connect speech sounds, spelling, and meaning. For example, autistic children often do not learn to decode when taught phonics in the way recommended by the Department for Education. Miss Emma, the Neurodivergent Reading Whisperer®, is one of the few, globally, who truly understands how to teach autistic children to decode words successfully. It is also important to note that many autistic children learn to read without any formal phonics instruction. Understanding and implementing schema-driven strategies is essential. Miss Emma equips those supporting children with the knowledge and tools to do this, working to eradicate illiteracy one child at a time.

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Word Mapping Mastery® Supports Self-Teaching by Building the Orthographic Lexicon: Visit WordMappingMastery.com

What Is Word Mapping Mastery®?

Word Mapping Mastery® refers to the skilled and accurate mapping of speech sounds (phonemes) to their written forms (graphemes), and from graphemes back to phonemes. This is the foundational process that allows children to store words in the orthographic lexicon, making reading automatic and spelling accurate.
 

It is not an approach or a programme. It is the essential learning that must take place for fluent reading and confident spelling to develop. Without it, children rely on guessing, sounding out without understanding, or memorising whole words. With it, they can recognise and spell words independently and move into the self-teaching phase as quickly as possible.
 

The Reading Hut Ltd offers unique training and word mapping tools that facilitate this skill and embrace linguistic and neurodiversity. Emma Hartnell-Baker, the Neurodivergent Reading Whisperer®, leads this training at WordMappingMastery.com


Word Mapping Mastery® ensures that:

  • Children understand how the sounds in spoken words link to written forms and back again, including when those sounds do not match their everyday speech

  • Words can be stored efficiently in the brain for instant recognition and recall, forming the basis of the Speech Sound Mapping Theory

  • Reading becomes increasingly automatic, allowing children to focus more easily on understanding meaning

  • Spelling is based on meaningful connections, not memorisation or rule-following
     

While we use word mapping tools to make word structure visible, Word Mapping Mastery® is about ensuring that children develop the knowledge and skill to map words for themselves, in both directions. Most of learning to read happens implicitly, but to reach that stage, children must first become successful self-teachers. This includes using existing phonics knowledge to decode unfamiliar words and store them correctly.

Speech Sound Mapping Theory - Word Mapping Mastery Facilitates Self-Teaching
The Speech Sound Learning Journey

Word Mapping Mastery® Builds the Brain’s Word Bank for Fluent Reading and Spelling

Getting Started? Use SpeechSoundPlay.com There is a 10-day Speech Sound Play Plan 

The Speech Sound Pics® Approach can be used to develop Word Mapping Mastery®

The 30-Minute Phonics Routine begins:

  1. 5 minutes – Solo or Paired Decoding

  2. 5–8 minutes – Coding Poster Lesson (ICRWY Lessons app)

  3. 10–15 minutes – Coding Poster (using an A3 coding poster to include the HFW section):

    • 60–90 secs – Phonemic awareness activity

    • 60–90 secs – Sound Pic (grapheme) formation and recognition

    • 90 secs – Blending of Code Level Sound Pics

    • 90 secs – Chants

    • 120 secs – High-frequency words

    • 120 secs – Code Level Sentences (Sound Pics with HFWs)
       

Additional Word Mapping Mastery activities are gradually introduced, including:

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