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How The Brain Learns To Read (Logic of English)

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How The Brain Learns To Read (Logic of English)

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The Science of Reading #logicofenglish #scienceofreading

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Katharine Miles, Ph.D. (PaTTAN- Types of High Frequency Words: Implications for Instruction)

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Katharine Miles, Ph.D. (PaTTAN- Types of High Frequency Words: Implications for Instruction)

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Types of High Frequency Words: Implications for Instruction

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Carolyn Strom

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Carolyn is an early literacy expert who works with preschool and elementary educators, families, and children to improve reading outcomes. She taught first grade in Los Angeles and Compton, CA for 8 years before becoming a Reading Specialist in New York City. She is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU, instructional media developer, and speaker.

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Carolyn Strom, PhD Word Reading and Early Literacy

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Carolyn is an early literacy expert who works with preschool and elementary educators, families and children to improve reading outcomes. A former first grade teacher in LA and Compton, CA, she is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU, media developer and speaker.

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What is Orthographic Mapping?

Have you ever wondered how students memorize sight words or why some students seem to effortlessly learn new words while others can't seem to make them stick? This post is all about a theory called orthographic mapping, which was originally introduced by Linnea Ehri. More recently David Kilpatrick has written books about the topic that caught my interest and transformed my teaching. Orthographic mapping is the process of creating sound-symbol connections to recall the spelling, pronunciation, and the meaning of words.

This post uses information from a few different resources, which I will list at the bottom of the post. I highly recommend reading these books when you get a chance. This is just an overview, and I'm hoping that it inspires you all to dig deeper with those books.

(Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert. I'm just super interested in all of this and have been studying and attempting to apply this information as best I can. This post is my attempt to summarize and break it down in a way that makes sense to me. It's just as much for you as it is for me! I have a really hard time remembering things, so creating a post like this helps me to wrap my brain around it and hopefully remember it! Ha! I hope it can do the same for some of you.)

What Does Reading Require?

I should start with the big picture: Reading requires two skill sets: Printed Word Recognition and Language Comprehension.

This post is focusing on printed word recognition. Word recognition requires phoneme awareness (sound awareness) and phonics (alphabet awareness- which symbols link to those sounds).

This post will go into how new readers take unknown printed words and turn them into known "sight words" or words automatically recognized.

But First... What's happening in the Brain

Research says the brain reads by breaking words into sounds. Our brains are naturally wired for speech, but not for reading! (Louisa Moats) Reading is a human invention developed over thousands of years.

(To read about the evolution and history of reading, check out Maryanne Wolf's book called Proust the Squid).

Our brain relies on other systems already in place mostly in the brain's language center to work together to read. There are four systems working together when we read:

One part of the brain (orthographic processor) identifies and processes the letters and letter patterns that our eyes see on the page. It's what helps us remember letter sequences for spelling.

Another part of the brain (phonological processor) identifies, remembers, interprets and produces speech sounds. Phoneme awareness is just one of the jobs of the phonological processor.

A third part connects the word to meaning (meaning processor). When we read, the orthographic processor and phonological processor must communicate with the meaning processor to make sense of the words we are reading. Another word for this is the semantic processor.

A fourth deals with background information and sentence context (context processor). The context processor interprets words.I find this one super interesting because it mainly supports the meaning processor. As you know, context helps us determine a word's meaning by using the words around it. Although context is helpful with self correcting, but it is not effective alone word identification.

(This information is from Louisa Moats: LETRS and Marilyn Adams: Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print)

The phonological and orthographic processors work together for word recognition. Automatic word recognition (identifying a word "on sight") happens after the word is read and mapped over and over and neural connections have gotten stronger and stronger. For some kids, this happens quickly after only a few repetitions, while with others, it takes seemingly endless (possibly hundreds of) exposures. (See my post on dyslexia.)

After students have mastered many words (meaning they have stored those letters patterns in their own mental lexicon), then they can begin to read using these familiar patterns. They may be quicker to read "p-an" and "m-an" because they have read "can" so many times and have "mapped" the letters a-n to the pronunciation "an".

I always tell my kindergarten students that reading begins with our ears. This is so true, but I didn't how true it was for a long time. They always get a kick out of this because of course they think reading begins with their eyes, looking at print. Reminding myself of this has really shaped how I teach reading and spelling. Read on to learn more!

Orthographic Mapping: How words become "sight words"

When students are first learning to read, they are sounding out most words. As they read more, they start to recognize words "on sight" without having to decode. But how does this happen? They need to store these letter sequences correctly (for word recognition) through orthographic mapping.

Orthographic Mapping is the process we use to store words into long term memory. (David Kilpatrick) These stored words are words that are recognized instantly without decoding. Skilled readers may develop orthographic mapping skills naturally, while others need more explicit instruction, guidance, and repetition to do so.

Clip art by: Educlips; Fonts by KG Fonts and A Perfect Blend Fonts

In his books Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties and Equipped for Reading Success, David Kilpatrick explains that with orthographic mapping, a reader is using the oral pronunciation of words that is already stored in memory with the correct letter (orthographic) sequences. He goes on to say the sequence of letters are anchored to the pronunciation of words. These pronunciations are already stored in our long term memory because we learn to speak well before we learn to read. I tried to break it down as I understand it here:

Developing a Phonological Lexicon

When toddlers learn to speak, each individual phoneme (sound) of a word is sequenced automatically, then stored in the brain's phonological lexicon. Basically, that word is in that child's word bank.

They can tell the difference between a cat and a hat, even though they only differ by one sound.

They recognize and interpret the sounds in those words and connect it to meaning (a furry animal or a thing you put on your head).

The phonological lexicon also includes word parts! (This will be relevant later in my post.) Once a child is ready to read, it's time to develop the orthographic lexicon.

Let's look at how this orthographic lexicon is developed.

Turning Unknown words into Sight Words

Remember that reading is a man-made skill and there is not a specific part of the brain that is designed solely for reading. Our brains use other systems in place together to make it all happen. It really is quite amazing!

The first few steps explain how phonic decoding works:

The following slide demonstrates how decoding (phonics) works. Keep in mind, this is only one piece of the puzzle. Keep reading to see what piece of the puzzle leads to word recognition!

Although phonic decoding is an essential skill for reading, it alone may not lead to future word recognition (knowing the word by sight) for all of our students. This is where orthographic mapping comes in! Think of it as going backward from phonic decoding.

With phonic decoding, students are taking the individual sounds (that they have translated from the letters) and blending them to make a whole word. (Part to whole.)

With orthographic mapping, students will take a whole word and break it into its sound parts and connect to the correct graphemes (letters or letter combinations), paying special attention to the exact sequence of letters and how it connects to the sounds. (Whole to parts.) It's this process that helps get the word stored in long-term memory.

Remember above when I said that our phonological lexicon also involves word parts? That's good news for our struggling readers because they can map common word parts and apply them to new words. Here is an illustration of how it's done:

Clip art by: Educlips and A Sketchy Guy. Fonts by KG Fonts and A Perfect Blend Fonts

Common Reading Practices to Reconsider

Using Context and other Strategies to "Read" Words

I was trained on guided reading and balanced literacy with an emphasis on reading strategies, mastering "sight words", and the belief that simply exposing kids to literacy (no matter how implicitly) would lead to successful and strategic readers. Except after a few years I realized that this worked for many of my readers (likely the ones that would learn to read in spite of their teacher or the instruction). However, this wasn't enough for some of my students.

I realized that the strategies (without explicit word study instruction) were actually just helping them compensate and cover up the fact that they couldn't decode. This was leading to constant guessing.

Turns out that contextual guessing not only doesn't help our struggling reader store the unknown word in memory, but it actually hinders them from learning the word. If they can guess, then they are not actually attending to the sequence of letters in the word. (Archer& Bryant 2001; Landi 2007)

Without strong foundational skills, these students were left to guess and use context. This is not enough. I couldn't figure out why they weren't applying certain rules that I "went over" during shared reading or for a few minutes during word work. Remember above when I talked about the phonological and orthographic processors that are in charge of word identification? These processors are linked to the context processor through the meaning processor. So that means word recognition does not happen through context.

Context does help once a word has been decoded. If a new reader decodes an unfamiliar word and doesn't get the stress right or gets one sound wrong, often then the context can help the student self correct that word. But context alone should not be the main tool in our students' reading tool belts.

Using Leveled Readers

So here's where I'm really going out onto a limb and I may ruffle some feathers. I no longer use leveled books and the traditional guided reading method with my beginning readers. Eek! I said it! Hear me out though. Think about those beginning leveled readers (levels A-D). What are your kids mainly doing? They are using the picture, looking at the first letter and guessing. Context plays a big part, too. There are few if any opportunities for students to actually apply phonic decoding skills with words they can actually be successful with. This goes against all of the research on how we learn to read.

That isn't to say that there isn't a place for leveled books later. I do use them once my students have a stronger foundation. In kindergarten, I would only use those leveled readers for those kids who can map more effortlessly. You know who they are. They are the ones who can learn sight words easily and who decode quickly. They are the exception though. I would still not use those alone, even with those kids. I want to make sure those kids who can seemingly read, have a strong foundation too. I would still spend a lot of time on phonics and morphology skills. I would also check their spelling skills! (See this post about spelling instruction.)

With the average kindergartener, I would not rush those sight word flash cards or the leveled readers. I would spend more time giving them opportunities to apply their newfound phonics skills in context using controlled texts. More about that below under Implications for Teaching. I do think there is a time and place for guided reading. I just think if we rush it too soon before foundational skills are in place and before they have had time to map words and word parts, we are setting some of our readers up for failure or for bad reading habits.

The Sight Word Myth

When I began teaching, I was taught (or maybe I inferred based on the methods I was taught) that good readers simply see a whole word and memorize it. Give 'em a set of flashcards and have at it. This is based on the assumption that we memorize words using our visual memory. Turns out, when we see a word, the input is visual but we do not store them visually.

Written words are actually stored (for later recall and recognition) on many levels at the same time: Phonologically (pronunciation), orthographically (spelling), and semantically (meaning). According to David Kilpatrick (and other researchers), there is actually a small correlation between sight word vocabulary and visual memory (although it does help with letter identification). There IS a strong correlation between sight vocabulary and phonemic awareness. As I explained above, to store a word permanently, students need to use phonemic awareness and letter knowledge to "map" that word's orthography (spelling).

If that's all too much to take in now, just think about this:

The whole language theory rests on this idea of using visual memory to store words. For years, I assigned sight words without any teaching behind them. I didn't think I was practicing whole language techniques, but actually, I was just by doing this. For years, I guided my kids to rely on context and other strategies that did not require them to really dissect the word. These strategies are fine to use as long as strong foundational skills about our language are explicitly taught. I was sort of missing that last part though. 😉 And a big reason I didn't dedicate more time to phonics and morphology is because I believed that English didn't make sense (and quite frankly I didn't know anything about it!) That's the second myth- that sight words are mostly irregular and don't make any sense. More about that in this post about English orthography.)

One more thing that I thought was really interesting is that the average human memory can only actually hold 2000 individual symbols (Diane McGuinness: Why our Children Can't Read and What to do about it), yet the average adult knows 40-60,000 words (and a well-educated adults knows 200,000). (Denise Eide: Uncovering the Logic or English) That's quite the discrepancy between how many words our oral language uses vs. how many words our brain can memorize.

This is a big hole in the whole-language/memorize-sight-words-without -phonics approach. I cringe when I think about how I "coached" my students to just see it and say it when I showed them a "sight word". I actually told them not to sound it out! AGH! I was under the impression that they had seen this word enough time and it should just be popping into their head. But guess what Sarah from the past... if it didn't pop out of their mouths, then it wasn't properly mapped in their memory. What I was doing was encouraging them to guess the first thing that looked like that word.

Now I know that with guidance, my students can and should "sound out" these high-frequency words instead of guessing. Now I know what you're thinking. Many kids do seem to just memorize those sight words pretty effortlessly. That's true enough, but they are still using the same process of mapping word parts and words, just faster. I think of those kids as the kids that will learn to read in spite of teaching methods or proper instruction. There are definitely those kids. But what about the 20% or more that don't?

The science tells us that skilled readers (like you) read words on a page effortlessly because you are "matching the words with spelling images that have been mapped or stored in your brain"..."Your reading circuitry is in place.". (Brain Words How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching by J. Richard Gentry and Gene P. Ouellette) Our brain has a lot of work to do to get to that point though. We need to listen to the science of reading and apply it to our teaching practice.

How To Teach High-Frequency "Sight" Words?

We map them the same way we would any other word. If it is "irregular", we point the irregular part(s) out and still map it. There are a few high frequency words that really don't make sense ( could is one I still can't figure out), but most are either off by one sound or they can be explained by a "generalization" or morphological connection. (Read more here)

Here is another visual that you can download.

Click here to download this guide along with the Map It board.

Here's another example with the word "want".

Click here to download this.

Implications for Teaching

All of the technical and scientific stuff here is interesting and relevant to understanding how our students learn to read and, perhaps more importantly, why some kids struggle so much. So now, it's our job as teachers to take this information that has been given to us by these amazing researchers and apply it to our teaching practices in the classroom.

I explain below a few ways that I've done that, but one thing I want you to walk away with is spelling. I know a trend is to throw spelling out the window. Heck, I even believed in that trend for a while. Here's what you should throw out the window: (1) Spelling lists that are random. (2) Spelling tests that just promote memorization. (3) Spelling lists that put too many spelling patterns at once.

As you will see below, spelling should be integrated into your instruction and can be done with your reading instruction. Encoding and decoding go hand and hand. Asking our students to hear a word, think about knowledge of spelling patterns, and then attempt to write that word is actually very helpful and fits in with all of this research. The key is to follow up with the correct spelling, pointing out the correct sound-symbol correspondence using the methods shown below. Hope this helps!

Process for Orthographic Mapping

Hand clip art by Creative Clips

Here is an example that you may do in late 1st grade or early 2nd grade:

Here is what a small group follow up lesson may look like:

The Role of Phonemic Awareness with Orthographic Mapping

Kilpatrick talks a lot about the importance of advanced phonemic awareness skills with orthographic mapping, like phoneme addition, deletion, and substituting. You will not need to continue this with all of your students. Kilpatrick says that "Typically developing readers will naturally analyze any whole word phonemically and establish an orthographic representation of that word." However, you will have students who do require this guided practice with advanced phonemic analysis.

Kilpatrick states that weak readers do not naturally engage in orthographic mapping because they lack those advanced phonemic awareness skills.

Below are some pictures from my small group work. We do a lot of phonemic segmenting with bingo chips and, when they are ready, continue with advanced phonemic skills.

For a kindergartener, I would say "Break up the word map". They would push the chips as they say /m/ /a/ /p/. Then I would say, "Take away the /m/. What do you have now?" (ap). Then I would slide over a new bingo chip and say, "This is /s/." I would place it where the /m/ was and ask, "now what is the word?" (sap).

For first and second graders, it gets a little tricker. You may ask your students to break up sled, then ask them to take away the /l/ and add in /p/. That takes phonological working memory (they are holding those sounds in their head long enough to do something with them) and phonological awareness/analysis.

Kilpatrick recommends doing more advanced phonemic awareness activities as students get older. Admittedly, I was not doing enough of this. I did a ton with kinder and beginning first, but then I focused on phonics and didn't put time into advanced phonemic awareness. Now that I do put time into it, I really see the value!

Below is just regular phoneme segmenting and connecting to graphemes. I have a set of sound boxes for several phonetic elements.

You can grab printable Sound Boxes here and digital sound boxes here.

After Mapping: Gaining Automaticity with Word Parts

Below is a chart I used after mapping word parts. I had a similar chart for my first and second graders once they learned silent e, vowel teams, r-controlled vowels, etc.

Under that star on the chart above, put irregular words that you have taught. For example, is, has, and was could go there. Map it first for your students, then add it to your chart.

Below shows some charts for silent e and vowel teams.

Here are some activities I've done with my students after word parts have been mapped:

I've used this activity as a follow-up after we have initially mapped a word:

Click here for these cards and many other decoding resources (including Google Slides)

And of course sometimes you just have to mix it up with phonics games! Our students work so hard and often need soooooo much repetition, so making it a game whenever possible is huge!

Click here to download a free template to make a Word Part Race as shown below:

Making your Word Sort Meaningful:

I used to think word sorts were a waste of time because I saw students just looking at the spelling of the word and matching it without reading it. Now I see how valuable they are as long as the right delivery is there. 😉 Below shows a picture of ways that I use sorting that I feel does support orthographic mapping.

Here, they are taking the whole word (the picture card) and they must first use phonemic awareness skills to segment the onset and the rime. Then they have to isolate that rime (for example, "ad") and match it to the correct letter sequence. This may be easy for some, but let me tell you, it is a challenge for many! That means it's worth doing!

If you are using word cards instead of picture cards, you just need to make sure they are reading them. If they are doing it as an independent activity, they likely will just try to match without reading. But if you do it as a small group activity, where they are whisper reading the word card and you are guiding, it can be quite effective.

Click here for picture and word cards (Print /laminate and Google Slides).

Next Steps: Phonic Decoding with Controlled Texts

After all the mapping, give your students opportunities to practice phonic decoding in context. Here are a few ways I provide controlled decodable texts.

In that first picture (the sentence ladders), I had them identify familiar rimes before reading. This group was working on silent e and we had mapped several word endings (rimes) with silent e.

First, I had students whisper read word endings that they spotted.

Then I called on students to share one they found.

I instruct them to say, "a-l-e, ale".

I would underline those word endings as they read them to me.

The other pictures just show normal decoding with sentences, but you can connect by asking, What ending do you see in the word pig? or Which word has the ending et?

Click here for decodable sentence resources.

I also use decodable short stories. You can find some decodable passages (also available as Google Slides) here.

What Skills Are Needed For Orthographic Mapping?

1. Sound-Symbol Awareness: Explicitly teaching and reviewing graphemes (letter or groups of letters that represent a sound) is the first important step.

As I've mentioned before, students need to recognize and produce the sound associated with a symbol with automaticity. This begins in kindergarten with the alphabet. (To read a blog post about systematic alphabet instruction, click here. To get resources for systematic alphabet instruction, click here.)

2. Phonemic awareness: I can't say it enough how important this is. Integrate it into you classroom daily!

Start with rhyming and isolating initial sounds (integrate into alphabet instruction), then move on to stretching words to hear medial sounds and ending sounds.

Next, you can move into phoneme segmenting (breaking words into individual sounds). You can easily do this with the whole class by finger spelling words. You don't need to wait for students to learn letters before doing this. Students may know one letter or all their letters, but they may (or may not) be equally good at this skill. You can start phonemic awareness activities day 1 in kindergarten!

Eventually you merge these two skills and that's when the magic happens. Since I've already been working on phoneme segmenting with finger spelling, they will be ready to start orthographic mapping using word parts or words with familiar letters they have learned. You can even start mapping when your students only know a few letters! Once I've taught my first set of letters, I start modeling phoneme segmenting. Some students are not ready to do this one their own, but others are. At this point, I'm modeling these skills.

As you map these word parts, add them to your chart of sticky notes shown above. Then review them daily. This can be done with the whole class, then you can reinforce as needed with small groups. Some kids might be ready to read more words, while others may need more time with each word part. Make a clear sequence to follow to keep you on track.

3. Phonological Long Term Memory: This is that phonological lexicon I was talking about earlier. Interestingly enough, dyslexic students can have a great phonological long-term memory but not have adequate phoneme awareness/analysis skills to effectively map the printed version of these words into long-term memory. You'll have to read Kirkpatrick's book to learn more!

Advanced Phonemic Awareness

One thing that I was missing when I originally wrote this blog post was the importance of continuing to do advanced phonemic drills with students beyond first and second grade. Kilpatrick's book Equipped for Reading Success has a whole section dedicated to drills you can use with. your students. He also provides a free assessment so you know where you need to begin with your students. How does this relate to learning new words? Kilpatrick talks about how typically developing readers may naturally engage in the process of mapping words. However, weaker readers will not naturally engage in this process because they lack the phonemic awareness skills.

References for Orthographic Mapping

The majority of information from this post can be found in David Kilpatrick's books, which I highly recommend. This blog post is just the tip of the iceberg. Reading his books will give you a deeper understanding and provide a lot more background as well as examples of how to teach.

After reading his book, I went back and read articles and research studies that he recommended. Dr. Louisa Moats has a whole series called " target="_blank" aria-label="undefined (opens in a new tab)" rel="noreferrer noopener">LETRS, which I also highly recommend. I went to a presentation of her several years ago and that was a game changer for me. It led me to all of this. Her books are easy to understand and so thorough! This one shown below is the first. If you are pressed for time, simply google her name and read the free articles she's written.

I also highly recommend Brain Words How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching. So much great information.

Here is research by Linnea Ehri: click here

Related Blog Posts

For more about how to teach reading, click here.

For more about the Science of Reading, click here.

Resources

I have tons of resources for phonic decoding and spelling!

If you're looking for a systematic approach to reading and spelling, click HER E to check out these units.

I also have a few different phonemic awareness resources (printable and hands on). Click here for those.

I also have several printable intervention packs, like the one shown below. Click here to get to those.

Digital Resources

I have several Boom decks for word building including cvc words, digraphs, consonant blends, silent e, vowel teams, ck words, bossy r, and diphthongs. I set these up to be like sound boxes. With this resource, students can tap the picture to hear the word, then they drag the letters to the empty boxes to spell the word. These are self-checking, which is great because then students can try again if they make an error.
Click HERE to see all of the digital word building decks.

Click HERE to read a blog posts all about Boom Decks.

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How Do We Learn New Words? Orthographic Mapping - Sarah's Teaching Snippets

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Orthographic mapping is the process of connecting pronunciation of a word with letter sequences to permanently store words into long term memory.

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Dr. Carolyn Strom (Beyond Buzzwords: Using The Science of Reading for Classroom) {Amplify-2021}

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Dr. Carolyn Strom (Beyond Buzzwords: Using The Science of Reading for Classroom) {Amplify-2021}

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Sight Word Grid Page (Incremental Rehearsal)

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Sight Word Grid Page (Incremental Rehearsal)

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This collection of sight words games gives children opportunities to practice their sight words and build toward mastery while also keeping them engaged and having fun. In general, we recommend using a mix of recently introduced words and some older words for review. The games include:

A sight words variation on a classic game. Read words correctly to put down X or O markers and get three in a row.
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This collection of sight words games gives children opportunities to practice their sight words and build toward mastery while also keeping them engaged and having fun. In general, we recommend using a mix of recently introduced words and some older words for review. The games include: A sight words variation on a classic game.

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Science of Reading-What I Should Have Learned in College | Facebook

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Science of Reading-What I Should Have Learned in College Mission Statement "Researchers now estimate that 95 percent of all children can be taught to read by the end of first grade...." Dr....

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Lyn Stone (What is Orthograhic Mapping?)

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Lyn Stone (What is Orthograhic Mapping?)

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Sight Word HW Letter and Sign-Off Sheet

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Dr. Miles (Sight Word Game) Virtual Adaptation

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Really Great Reading

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Heart Word Magic - Help Students Learn to Read and Spell High-Frequency and Sight Words

Heart Word Magic is a complimentary teaching tool designed to help students learn to read and spell high-frequency words and sight words, particularly those that aren't very decodable. Show your students the animations, then try these fun, hands-on free Student Practice Activities>>

What Is a Heart Word?

Show your students this video to introduce them to Heart Word Magic! We use animations and practice techniques to clearly show students that the alphabetic principle doesn't completely disappear in Tricky Heart Words. The same skills students use for decoding are also helpful in learning to read and spell these less-decodable words. Heart Word Magic helps them to "make the tricky sticky."

What is Phonics Suite?

How can you give your students the skills they need to become strong decoders and accurate and fluent readers? Really Great Reading has a solution. It's called Phonics Suite, a comprehensive set of tools to diagnose, group, and teach students with weaknesses in their foundational reading skills. There are even tools to monitor progress, report, and adjust. Click here to read more>>

Explore Our Library of Heart Word Magic Animations

After showing your students the Heart Word Magic animations, try these fun, hands-on activities with your kids.

Highlight the Tricky to Make It Sticky

One easy way to help students focus on and remember the parts of Tricky Heart Words they need to remember by heart is to simply have students highlight the part of the word that is "tricky" (the phonologically irregular part), such as the letter a in what. Check out our activities below.

Heart Word Magic Spelling Activity Sheet

This activity allows students to practice spelling Heart Words (high-frequency words) with irregular letter-sound relationships by filling in a heart above the irregular part of the word that must be learned "by heart." Below are some suggested directions and sample scripts to use with the words said, have, from, and the.Click here to download Heart Word Magic Spelling Student Activity>>

Heart Word Magic Scaffolded Spelling Activity Sheet

This activity allows students to practice spelling Heart Words (high-frequency words) with irregular letter-sound relationships by listening to the individual phonemes in a word and then writing down the corresponding spellings. The teacher can give students the spelling for the irregular part of the word that must be learned "by heart." Below are some suggested directions and sample scripts to use with the words said, from, his, and of.
Click here to download Heart Word Magic Scaffolded Spelling Activity>>

Heart Word Magic Dissect a Word Activity Sheet

This activity allows students to practice dissecting Heart Words (high-frequency words) with irregular letter-sound relationships by listening to the individual phonemes in a word and then filling in the corresponding spellings. They fill in a heart above the irregular part of the word that must be learned "by heart" and write that tricky part again. Below are some suggested directions and sample scripts to use with the words said, from, his, of, and could.
Click here to download the Heart Word Magic Dissect a Word Student Activity>>

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Heart Word Magic - Read and Spell High Frequency Words

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Heart Word Magic - Help Students Learn to Read and Spell High-Frequency and Sight WordsHeart Word Magic is a complimentary teaching tool designed to help students learn to read and spell high-frequency words and sight words, particularly those that aren't very decodable.

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Protocol for Teaching Irregular Word (Reading Rockets)

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Protocol for Teaching Irregular Word (Reading Rockets)

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Sight Word Game (Brooklyn College Early Literacy Lab) ~Dr. Miles

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UFLI Virtual Teaching Hub

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UFLI: Heart Words Intro Slideshow

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Sight Word Parking Lot Game

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The Sight Words Parking Lot game has the student parking a toy car in a parking space matching a particular word provided by the teacher. The game gives the student sight word repetition to build speed and confidence in recognizing their sight words.

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The game requires only a "parking lot" made with tape and a toy car or other figurine:

As an alternative to the toy car, you can use any small figurine. Be flexible and use whatever will capture and hold your child's attention. If your child prefers horses to cars, use a horse figurine and call this the Stable Game.

Print out some sight words flash cards, using pre-made templates or our custom flash card creator. Then use masking tape or painter's tape to create a "parking lot" on the floor or table. (Make sure the "parking spaces" are large enough to match the size of the toy and the flash cards you are using.) The more spaces you have, the more words you can cover in the game.
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Video: How to Play Sight Words Parking Lot

Have the child sit in front of the parking lot, holding their toy car.

Adult: We are going to play the Parking Lot game. I am going to say a word, and you
have to find the word.
Once you find the word and read it out loud, you can drive your car to that space
and park the car on that word. Ready?Open.
[The child looks for the wordopen, and when they find it, they run their finger under the word from left to right and say the word out loud.]
Child:Open. [The child then parks the car on top of the correct word.]

If the child gets the word right, you confirm that they are correct, they get to "park" the car on that word, and then you move on to another word. If the child can't find the word, or selects the wrong word, go through our standard sight words correction procedure to review the word.

Call out another word, and then another, until the child has successfully found and "parked" on all the words in the parking lot multiple times. Once a child has a bit of experience with the game, they can play by themselves, coming to you only at the end of the game with any words that they had trouble sight reading.
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4.1 Introduce the Words First

You can make the game a little easier by introducing all the words at the start of the game. Before you start playing, the teacher and the student read all the words on the board together. This is particularly useful when you are working with new words.

4.2 Two Players

Two more advanced students can play the game without needing an adult, with one player taking the role of teacher and choosing the words. You simply need one toy car (or other figurine) for each player. The first player chooses a word and announces it, while the second player has to find the word. The first player then checks the word and says another word. After a few minutes, the players switch roles.

4.3 Larger Lot

Make the game more difficult by making a larger parking lot with more parking spaces. The extra spaces make searching and finding a single word more challenging.

4.4 Reverse Parking Lot

In the reverse game, the teacher parks the car on a word and asks the student to tell them what word they are parked on. This variation is a little harder than the basic form of the game, because the child has to recognize the word purely through sight reading without having the benefit of hearing the word first.
↑ Top The game lends itself well toward assessment. It is easy to observe which words the child has mastered and which words need more work, so that you can take inventory of progress on learning new words.
Mastery of the words in this exercise requires the child to be able to consistently find the correct word within five seconds, for 100% of the words being practiced.
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The Sight Words Parking Lot game has the student parking a toy car in a parking space matching a particular word provided by the teacher. The game gives the student sight word repetition to build speed and confidence in recognizing their sight words.

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Say It, Move It, Spell It (Virtual Slides)

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Word Building: Say It -Move It -Spell It (Short e focus)

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UFLI: Irregular Word Review Slides

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Sight Word Game: Hangman (Adapted: Build A Person)

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Sight Words Hangman | Sight Words: Teach Your Child to Read

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If he correctly reads and says the word, then he can move that flash card to a "keep" pile. Continue in this way, until all the body pieces have been added to the board. Add the head, then the torso, then the two arms, and finally the two legs.

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Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties offers school psychologists, reading specialists, and educators a practical and accessible guide to the most relevant research, information, and strategies available for understanding, assessing, and intervening with students who present with reading difficulties.

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Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties

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Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties offers school psychologists, reading specialists, and educators a practical and accessible guide to the most relevant research, information, and strategies available for understanding, assessing, and intervening with students who present with reading difficulties.

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Say It, Move It, Write It (With Visual Vowel Support)

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UFLI: Irregular Word Answer Key Resource

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Sight Words Fly Swat is a game for building speed and confidence with identifying sight words. The adult says a word, and the child has to spot the word and splat it with a fly swat. Children find the physicality of the activity fun, and this game is a perennial favorite. Sight Words Fly Swat is a great way of giving your child(ren) the repetition they need to achieve mastery while keeping them engaged. Because the game is so physical, it is a good game for channeling their energy when they are feeling a bit wiggly.

↑ Top The game requires a fly swatter and the Sight Words Fly Cards that the children will "splat."
2.1 Fly Swatter
Get a fly swatter for use in the game. For younger children, a fly swatter with a shorter handle is easier to use and aim. If you are teaching multiple students at the same time, some extra swatters in different colors will come in handy.
2.2 Sight Words Fly Cards

Fly templates

Cardstock paper (approximately 110 lb / 200 gsm)

Printer

Scissors

To make the fly cards, download and print out the relevant set of Sight Words Fly Cards, preferably on cardstock paper. Cut out the bugs with the scissors. ↑ Top Set up the game by placing the fly cards out on a table, well spaced out, and word side up. The adult calls out one word at a time. The child must find the word among the fly cards on the table and then "splat" the word with their fly swatter while repeating the word. For a child that is just starting with sight words, you will begin with around five fly cards. As the child gets more advanced, you can add more words, and words that are deliberately chosen to be similar so that they are harder to distinguish.

Video: How to Play Sight Words Fly Swat

Adult: We are going to play the Fly Swat game. Are you ready to SPLAT some bugs? Child: Yes! Adult: I am going to call out a word, and you swat it with your swatter. I'll do the first one. You. [The teacher hits theyou fly card with the fly swatter.] You. Your turn.
The adult then calls out words one at a time, allowing the child time to find and splat the relevant fly. When the child gets the words correct, offer occasional praise and encouragement. As the child gains confidence, very gradually increase the speed at which you call out the words to encourage the student to develop more speed with their sight words. If the child gets the answer wrong, or cannot spot the word within ten seconds, use the sight words correction to help the child review the word. The game continues for 5-10 minutes, allowing you enough time to cycle through the words several times. Note: We want the fly cards to be identical in all aspects except the words printed on them. So if you are going to decorate the cards, or print them on colored paper, make the flies identical. If they look different, some children will learn to tell them apart using these other characteristics instead of focusing on the words. ↑ Top You can change the difficulty of the game, making it easier by using fewer words, using words that are very different, and giving the child more time to find each word. The game can be made more challenging by using more words, using words that are similar (e.g., the, that, and there), and speeding up the rate at which you call out new words.
4.1 Group Fly Swat
A small group of up to four children sit side-by-side in front of the words and compete to be the first to splat each word as soon as you call it out. You want to try and pair up children of similar ability on this game, so that everyone stays engaged. If you have a more advanced child, she can be in charge of calling out the word.
4.2 Compound Fly Swat
Instead of calling out just one word at a time, the adult calls out two and eventually even three or four words. The child then has to "splat" each of the fly cards in the order they were called. This helps the student develop memory and recall as well as building speed in recognizing the words.
4.3 Reverse Fly Swat
The adult uses the fly swatter to "splat" a fly, and the child responds by saying the word on the fly card. As the child gains confidence, the adult speeds up their rate of "splatting" the words. This game is more difficult, because it requires the child to read the word without any clues from you. ↑ Top An observer can make note of the words the child correctly and incorrectly recognizes in the game to track how they are progressing and the words that may need more attention. To demonstrate mastery of the words, the child should be able to confidently identify the correct word for 100% of the words, with each word taking less than 5 seconds. ↑ Top Generate custom fly cards or use some of our pre-made templates below.

6.1 Blank Fly Cards

6.2 Dolch Sight Words Fly Cards

6.3 Fry Sight Words Fly Cards

6.4 Top 150 Written Words Fly Cards

To download a template, right-click and select Save As.

These materials are provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Essentially, this means you can do whatever you want with the resources, provided you leave the attribution hallmark on the resources. You may use these materials in the classroom, at home, as part of a for-profit tutoring business, or for any other purpose. You do not need to contact us for permission to use the materials. We want you to use them!

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Sight Words Fly Swat is a game for building speed and confidence with identifying sight words. The adult says a word, and the child has to spot the word and splat it with a fly swat. Children find the physicality of the activity fun, and this game is a perennial favorite.

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The Original SPIRAL BOUND Book! Our CANADIAN Distributors: Caversham CLICK HERE West Coast Literacy CLICK HERE Payment Options: 1) School PURCHASE ORDERS: CLICK HERE 2) Orders for Individuals * Ch...

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Double Decker Elkonin Box Jam Board (Gregory Rubin)

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Double Decker Elkonin Box Jam Board (Gregory Rubin)

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Brooklyn College Early Literacy Lab - Double Decker Elkonin Box Tool - Google Jamboard

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Brooklyn College Early Literacy Lab - Double Decker Elkonin Box Tool

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Sight Word Game:Boom!

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Sight Words Boom! is a vocabulary-themed game for one or more players. Children will collect cards by correctly reading the sight words printed on them. But watch out for the BOOM cards! Draw a BOOM card, and you lose all the cards you collected and have to start over.

Image: Sight Words Boom!

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Create Boom! cards with our Boom! Card Creator and print the cards out on cardstock paper. Each sheet will have eight sight word cards and one BOOM card. Cut apart the cards along the dotted lines.
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Shuffle the cards and put them in a face-down stack. Player A draws a card from the stack and reads the word on it out loud, moving her index finger from left to right underneath the letters as she reads. (An adult should demonstrate this reading technique at the start of the game to teach or remind children how best to read the word.)

If she reads the word correctly, she gets to keep the card. Then Player B takes a turn (if there are multiple players). If Player A does not read the word correctly, Player B gets a chance to read that word and collect a card.

NOTE: If there is a word that no player can read correctly, the adult should set the card aside as a reminder to work on that word in the next day's lesson.

The BOOM cards are what make this game fun and exciting! If a child draws a BOOM card, she loses all the cards she has collected. On her next turn she can start collecting new cards. The lost cards (including the BOOM card) should be shuffled and added to the bottom of the face-down stack.

Keep playing until all the cards in the face-down stack have been collected. The winner is the player with the most cards.

If there is only one player, she plays to see how many cards she can collect before losing them to a BOOM card. She can play repeatedly, trying to beat her previous record.
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If the child is easily discouraged when she loses her cards, simply play with fewer BOOM cards.
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Set a timer for anywhere from one to five minutes. Challenge the players to read as many words and collect as many cards as they can before the time runs out. But they still have to watch out for the BOOM cards!
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Create your own custom Boom! cards or use some of our pre-made templates below.

6.1 Blank Boom! Card Templates

6.2 Dolch Sight Words Boom! Cards

6.3 Fry Sight Words Boom! Cards

6.4 Top 150 Written Words Boom! Cards

To download a template, right-click and select Save As.

These materials are provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Essentially, this means you can do whatever you want with the resources, provided you leave the attribution hallmark on the resources. You may use these materials in the classroom, at home, as part of a for-profit tutoring business, or for any other purpose. (Except starting forest fires. That's bad.) You do not need to contact us for permission to use the materials. We want you to use them!
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Sight Words Boom! is a vocabulary-themed game for one or more players. Children will collect cards by correctly reading the sight words printed on them. But watch out for the BOOM cards! Draw a BOOM card, and you lose all the cards you collected and have to start over.

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Irregular Sight Word Steps for Learning (Gregory Rubin)

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Irregular Sight Word Steps for Learning (Gregory Rubin)

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Sight Word Game: BINGO

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Sight Words Bingo is our most popular sight words game. It takes the traditional Bingo game and replaces the numbers with words, motivating the child to read the sight words so they can play (and win!) the game. Children love playing Sight Words Bingo, and it is a great way to provide repetition opportunities in a large group setting.

Each child gets his or her own Bingo Card with a set of words printed on a grid on the face of the card. The adult calls out words one at a time, and each time the child hears a word that is on their card, they cover the word with a marker. When the markers line up to make a complete row (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal), the child yells "Bingo!" and they are declared the winner of that round.
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To play Sight Words Bingo, you just need Bingo cards and some markers:

Bingo Cards Generator

Printer paper or cardstock (approximately 110 lb / 200 gsm)

Printer

Bingo markers or counters (approximately 20 per player)

Use our Bingo Card Generator to produce one Bingo Card for each child, and print them out (preferably on a heavy-duty cardstock paper). You want to use a mix of newer words that you are currently working on, as well as some words you need to review. The Bingo Card Generator will also create a word list that you can use to help you run the game.

Video: Making Sight Words Bingo Cards

If you will be creating multiple sets of Bingo cards, it is useful to label each set on the back so that you can easily sort out the sets if they get jumbled together. (We learned this the hard way!)

You need some Bingo counters to mark each of the squares as the child plays the game. The counters pictured were purchased, but you can also use pennies, bread bag tags, pebbles, or anything else you have handy. If purchasing plastic markers, we prefer the markers that are plain and single-colored; multiple colors often prove too much of a distraction.

Some people use a Bingo Marker that the child uses to color the square instead of a counter. This gives the children a bit of practice gripping the pens, but it also requires you to hand out fresh Bingo cards for each round.
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Each child is given a Bingo Card and a handful of markers (approximately 20 per child). The children are given 90 seconds to read all the words on their card. If there are any weak readers in the class, the adult should take this time to work with those children to help them read all the words on their card; otherwise they are going to be lost for the rest of the game.

Video: Playing Sight Words Bingo

The adult takes the word list and picks a word at random from the list. The adult reads out the word, uses it in a sentence, then reads out the word again. For example, if the word was plate, the adult could call out:

Adult: Plate. I ate dinner on a round plate. Plate.

The adult then marks off the word from the list to help them remember which words have been called already. The adult takes a long pause between each word to give the children time to play the game.

When the children hear a word called out, they are supposed to look at their Bingo card and see if they can find the word on the card (not every word is on every card). If they find the word, they place a counter on that square.

To win, a child has makes an entire line (five vertical, horizontal, or diagonal squares). For the purposes of making a line, the center space (free space) is considered to be automatically filled. When a child has a line, they yell out "BINGO!"

When a child claims to be the winner, ask her to read out her four or five words that made a line (more reading practice), and check these words on her card and on your word list to make sure she actually heard and marked the words correctly. If she played correctly, that child is declared the winner, and we move on to playing the next round.

We start a new round by having each child pass their card to their left, so that each child has a new card and is given the opportunity to read new words.
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You can make the game easier by reducing the number of squares from the standard 5-by-5 to 4-by-4 or even 3-by-3, and by using a majority of older, more familiar words. You can also allow each child to retain their card for a few rounds so they become more familiar with their cards. As we mentioned, you can help a weak reader at the start of the game by having them read the words to you, correcting any mistakes they have made.
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You can make the game harder by using a majority of newer and less familiar words. You can also add some time pressure and increase the pace at which you read out new words, so that the children have to read the words more quickly. Speeding up the pace of the game helps children master the words, as they are forced to truly read by sight and cannot rely on crutches such as sounding out the initial letters.

Alternately, you can make the game last longer by not declaring a winner until a child covers all the squares on their Bingo card.
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Bingo is not the best game for doing an assessment of individual children. But by observing the whole classroom, you can get a sense for which words are flummoxing the children and need more work, and the words that are becoming too easy and should be removed from rotation because the children have already mastered them.
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Remember that if you are playing with multiple children, each child needs their own card that is different from everyone else's. Otherwise, everyone will get BINGO at the same time! The pre-made templates below include 30 different Bingo cards made from the same word list, so you can use them for a whole classroom of kids or just one child playing multiple games.

7.1 Custom Sight Words Bingo Cards

Use the Sight Words Bingo Card Creator to create your own custom set of Bingo cards. This generator lets you select from both existing sight words lists (e.g., Dolch and Fry) as well as allowing you to add custom words (e.g., allowing you to add students' names or words relevant to a unit you are currently doing). The creator will also create a teacher's word list to help you run the game.

7.2 Blank Bingo Card Templates

7.3 Dolch Sight Words Bingo Cards

7.3.a Dolch Sight Words 5×5 Bingo Cards

7.3.b Dolch Sight Words 4×4 Bingo Cards

7.3.c Dolch Sight Words 3×3 Bingo Cards

7.4 Fry Sight Words Bingo Cards

7.4.a Fry Sight Words 5×5 Bingo Cards

7.4.b Fry Sight Words 4×4 Bingo Cards

7.4.c Fry Sight Words 3×3 Bingo Cards

7.5 Top 150 Written Words Bingo Cards

7.5.a Top 150 Written Words 5×5 Bingo Cards

7.5.b Top 150 Written Words 4×4 Bingo Cards

7.5.a Top 150 Written Words 3×3 Bingo Cards

To download a template, right-click and select Save As.

These materials are provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Essentially, this means you can do whatever you want with the resources, provided you leave the attribution hallmark on the resources. You may use these materials in the classroom, at home, as part of a for-profit tutoring business, to wrap fish, or for any other purpose your heart desires. You do not need to contact us for permission to use the materials. We want you to use them!
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Sight Words Bingo is our most popular sight words game. It takes the traditional Bingo game and replaces the numbers with words, motivating the child to read the sight words so they can play (and win!) the game. Children love playing Sight Words Bingo, and it is a great way to provide repetition opportunities in a large group setting.

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Heart Word Magic: Scaffolded Spelling

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"Find and Frame" Irregular Word In Text

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 ‘Find and Frame’ Pre-Reading Strategy (2021)

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(Note: This post has been updated on April 3, 2022.)

Every word has three forms - its sounds (phonemes), its orthography (spelling), and its meaning. Orthographic mapping is the process that all successful readers use to become fluent readers. Through orthographic mapping, students use the oral language processing part of their brain to map (connect) the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings). They then permanently store the connected sounds and letters of words (along with their meaning) as instantly recognizable words, described as "sight vocabulary" or "sight words".
Sight Words
A sight word is any word that a reader instantly recognizes and identifies without conscious effort. Adult competent readers have between 30,000 and 60,000 words that have been orthographically mapped in their sight vocabulary. As soon as one of these words is seen, it is unconsciously and instantly recognizable. This is what enables us to be efficient readers, able to focus on the meaning of what we read instead of on word reading. When words are stored as sight vocabulary words in long-term memory, a reader no longer has to decode words one at a time the way beginning readers do. While some orthographic mapping can begin earlier, most children start applying this skill in second and third grade. As we continue to read into adulthood, we continue to use orthographic mapping to grow our sight word vocabularies.

Because some high-frequency words (e.g., the, and, is, was, for, are) are essential to learning how to read, teachers of kindergarten and grade 1 typically provide explicit instruction to help students automatically read some of these words. Students are taught to read them as whole words at the same time that they are being taught how to decode most other words. However, once students are able to orthographically map, they will start to store high-frequency words as sight words on their own.
What is the mental process of orthographic mapping?
With orthographic mapping of a word, the letters we see with our eyes and the sounds we hear in that word get processed together as a sight word and are stored together in the brain. This is not the same as memorizing just the way a word looks. It is also important to remember that orthographic mapping is a mental process used to store and remember words. It is not a skill, teaching technique, or activity you can do with students (Kilpatrick, 2019). What can be taught are phonemic awareness and phonics skills which enable orthographic mapping.

With orthographic mapping, students connect something new with something they already know. Through listening and speaking, young students already know a word's pronunciation and meaning which is stored in their long-term memory. Students turn a written word into a sight word by attaching the phonemes in the word's pronunciation to the letter sequence of the word. The pronunciation of the word has to be broken into its phonemes, which is why having strong phonemic awareness skills is important. The word's letter sequence can become familiar (i.e., become a sight word) because the student can attach it to the already known pronunciation.

Kilpatrick (2019) provides examples similar to the following:

If a student knows the spoken word /bed/, its pronunciation is stored in long-term memory - he knows what it means and what it sounds like. If he has good phonemic awareness skills, he can pull the word apart into its individual sounds (phonemes) /b/ /e/ /d/. Those sounds become the anchoring points for the word's printed sequence. The student can then attach each phoneme to its corresponding letter (spelling). The student is using the power of what he knows (the pronunciation) and attaching it like "superglue" to the printed word bed. This example has all single sound-letter correspondences.

If a student knows the spoken word /sheep/, its pronunciation is stored in long-term memory - he knows what it means and what it sounds like. Using phonemic awareness skills, he can pull the word apart into its individual sounds /sh/ /e/ /p/. The student then attaches each phoneme to its corresponding spelling. In this example, some of the sounds are represented by more than one letter.

In typically developing readers from grade 2 on who have orthographic mapping skills, they only need to see and read printed words one to four times before they become permanently stored as sight words for future instant recall (Reitsma, 1983 as cited in Kilpatrick, 2015). When a word becomes a sight word, as soon as it is seen its sound and meaning are immediately available. Having a significant amount of stored sight words is what enables fluency - quick and accurate reading where the reader is free to focus on making meaning from text.
How does orthographic mapping develop?
Three intersecting skills must be in place to enable orthographic mapping (Ehri, 2014; Kilpatrick, 2015):

Highly proficient phonological and phonemic awareness

Automatic letter-sound correspondence knowledge

The ability to accurately and quickly decode a word by identifying its sounds letter by letter, and blending those sounds to read the word

Here's how Ehri (2014) explains the skills that need to be in place before orthographic mapping can take place:

"To form connections and retain words in memory, readers need some requisite abilities. They must possess phonemic awareness, particularly segmentation and blending. They must know the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences (letter-sound knowledge) of the writing system. Then they need to be able to read unfamiliar words on their own by applying a decoding strategy." Doing so "activates orthographic mapping to retain the words' spellings, pronunciations, and meanings in memory." (p. 7)

Kilpatrick (2015) describes three phases of word-reading development for children in the primary grades that are aligned with corresponding phonological skill development. As noted above in Ehri's quote, the ability to segment and blend phonemes is needed to support decoding and eventually orthographic mapping. Kilpatrick has proposed that advanced phonemic awareness activities focused on practice with phoneme manipulation might be helpful for students who are not able to orthographically map words; however, at this time there is not sufficient research to indicate that instruction focused on advanced phonemic awareness improves orthographic mapping.

Beginning readers in kindergarten and grade 1 are developing their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and basic phonemic awareness skills, and are beginning to learn phonic decoding. Before a student can orthographically map a word, the word first has to be identified. Young students identify the pronunciation of a word by using their letter-sound knowledge to determine each sound in the word, and then using their phonemic blending skills to blend those sounds to decode (sound out) the word.

Once these skills are proficient, typically by grade 3, orthographic mapping usually develops for the majority of students simply by interacting with letters and words. However, many students with word-reading difficulties do not develop orthographic mapping. They therefore have greater difficulty developing the sight word vocabulary needed for fluent reading and will likely stay disfluent and hesitant readers unless they receive intervention that builds proficiency in phonemic awareness (in particular segmenting and blending) and phonics and decoding skills (Kilpatrick, 2015; Parker, 2019). It is difficult for them to get beyond having to decode most words when they read.
Implications for Teaching: Explicit Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction Leads to Orthographic Mapping
Phonemic awareness and phonics instruction help students use the alphabetic principle to learn relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. As noted in the word-reading development chart above, developing early phonological awareness, including phonemic awareness of initial sounds, should be a focus of PreK and kindergarten instruction to develop basic letter-sound correspondence knowledge. As students move through kindergarten and grade one, a focus on blending and segmenting of phonemes in written words develops phonic decoding skills which must be in place for orthographic mapping. Some kindergarten and grade 1 students may be able to start completing simple phoneme manipulation tasks, such as deleting or substituting initial sounds in words.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE: After this post first appeared, Joan Sedita presented a webinar titled "The Role of Orthographic Mapping in Learning to Read." It is now a free, archived webinar at the Keys to Literacy website. Click here to access.
References

Ehri, L. C. (1998). Grapheme-phoneme knowledge is essential to learning to read words in English. In J. L. Metsala & L. C. Ehri (Eds.), Word recognition in beginning literacy (p. 3-40). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Ehri, L.C. (2014) Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading 18(1).

Kilpatrick, D.A. (2015). Assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Kilpatrick, D.A. (2019). Assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Online course. Colorado Department of Education. Retrieved from: https://sitesed.cde.state.co.us/course/view.php?id=132#section-1

Parker, S. (2019). Sight words, orthographic mapping, and self-teaching. Stephen Parker blog post, April 22, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/sight-words-orthographic-mapping-and-self-teaching

Reitsma, P. (1983). Printed word learning in beginning readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 36, 321-339.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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The Role of Orthographic Mapping in Learning to Read - Keys to Literacy

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Every word has three forms - its sounds (phonemes), its orthography (spelling), and its meaning. Orthographic mapping is the process that all successful readers use to become fluent readers. Through orthographic mapping, students use the oral language processing part of their brain to map (connect) the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings).

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Incremental Rehearsal Technique

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Sight Word Game- Dr. Miles (Jam Board Adaptation Created by Lauren Dustman)

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Copy of Double Decker Game Jam Board - Google Jamboard

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Orthographic Mapping of Irregular Words: WIFFT 2/4/23  

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Hear Word: Dissect a Word (Really Great Reading)