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Module 1 Video 1 Introduction to Phonological Awareness Video

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Module 1 Video 1 Introduction to Phonological Awareness Video

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READ Intervention & Sound Start Literacy

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Module 1 Video 1 Introduction to Phonological Awareness Video

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Orthographic Mapping: What it Is and Why It's So Important

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Orthographic Mapping: What it Is and Why It's So Important

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Orthographic Mapping: What it Is and Why It's So Important

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Phonemes, Rollins Center for Language & Literacy, 44 Phonemes(5:39 min)

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Teaching Multisyllabic Words by Holly Lane at UFLI (22 min)

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P.A.S.T. (Phonological Awareness Screening Test)

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P.A.S.T. (Phonological Awareness Screening Test)

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Phonological Awareness Screening Test (PAST)

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Rooting in English: Morphology as a Tool for Developing Literacy - BenPowers – Haskins Global Literacy Hub (51 minutes) May 20, 2020

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Support Struggling Readers with Assessment

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What is the science of reading? (7 min video)

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What is the science of reading? (7 min video)

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Activities to Promote Orthographic Mapping

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Activities to Promote Orthographic Mapping

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In my last post, we discussed orthographic mapping and why it is crucial for reading success. Theory is great, but what every teacher wants to know is this-how does it look in practice? In it's simplest terms, we want to use activities that will help students focus on matching sound to print. Today, I want to talk about a variety of activities that you can use to promote orthographic mapping.

Phonemic awareness

Without phonemic awareness, orthographic mapping isn't possible. Children must be able to sequence and manipulate words at the phoneme level to be successful. You don't have to have a program. Instead, every day you can practice segmenting, blending, adding, deleting, or substituting. I've discussed phonemic awareness at length in other posts, so I won't belabor it here. But I couldn't write without highlighting the importance of this skill-you can't match sounds to print without a knowledge of the sounds.

How should you do it? Use the words you are using for your word study! Before introducing a new phonics skill, practice phonemic awareness tasks with the words. For example, if you were about to teach magic e, your students could practice segmenting words with short and long a. Just remember, however, that we need to take our phonemic awareness practices to print! After you have practiced your phonemic awareness tasks, make sure you are bridging those sounds to the graphemes that match those phonemes! I've moved the phonemic awareness portion of my lesson to right before I introduce a phonics rule, exactly for this reason.

Sound-symbol mapping

Sound-symbol mapping is a fantastic procedure to use for practicing new phonic rules or reviewing previous ones. The purpose of sound-symbol mapping is to assist students in matching phonemes to the graphemes that represent those sounds (sounds familiar, right? Are you tired of hearing me say that we need to match sounds to print?)

Here's the procedure:

1. Say a word. Have students repeat the word.

2. Tap the sounds.

3. Outline/color in the same number of boxes as sounds. (3 sounds = 3 boxes).

4. Fill in the letter(s) that represent those sounds. There may be more than 1 letter that represents a sound. For example, the word crash has 5 letters, but only 4 sounds. The sh goes in one box because it represents a single sound.

Time and time again, I hear teacher say how powerful this strategy has been for them. If you want to see this in action, check out my Facebook live on orthographic mapping. I start utilizing this technique around the 14:30 minute mark.

Using Elkonin Boxes

Before I introduce a new phonics rule, I use elkonin boxes to get students thinking about the sounds. For example, if I am teaching students ou and ow, I give them several pictures, like the ones on the right (cow, snout, couch, shower).

Before I even discuss the graphemes, we talk about the sounds. We use chips or buttons to represent each sound. After tapping sounds, I say something like "Where was the /ow/ sound in cow? snout? couch? shower?" Then I make the explicit connection between sounds and symbols. "When we hear the /ow/ sound in the middle, we use an ou. When we hear the /ow/ sound at the end of a syllable or word, we use the ow." I always try to make explicit the connection between phonemes and graphemes.

Rainbow sounds

When I was in the classroom, one of my favorite activities was rainbow words, where children write each word in a different colored marker or crayon. It's a fun activity, and one that is literally zero prep for the teacher. But I'm no longer convinced it is an effective strategy for word study. Ask yourself this-is it possible for the child to do this activity without being able to read or spell the word? If so, then we may need to rethink it.

One way we can focus on making the sound-symbol connection is by having children use a different color for every sound, NOT every letter. Take a look at the picture. If a child writes itch in 4 different colors, does it tell you anything about their spelling knowledge? If a child writes i-tch with two colors, that tells you that they have been paying attention to the sounds. Shoutout to Decodable Readers Australia, where I first heard about this technique!

Teaching heart words

Giving children flashcards with high-frequency words and expecting them to somehow remember those words is not an efficient strategy. There's an idea floating around in the teaching world that sight words are words we "just have to memorize because you can't sound them out." In fact, after I left college I thought sounding it out was an ineffective strategy for most words. Instead, I thought we should using the cueing strategies to promote word recognition. I cringe when I reflect on how I used to tell parents that children should be using the text clues, not phonics clues, to read the words.

The truth is, however, that we CAN sound out sight words. We just have to draw attention to the sounds that DO work before we talk about the ones that don't play fair. I have an entire blog post dedicated to this topic. At the bottom, I'll list some great free resources to help you get started!

Final Thoughts

I know what you're thinking. When am I supposed to do these activities? The great thing is this-all of these activities can be done whole-group or small group. Most of these activities don't require a lot of time each day. What many of them do require, however, is consistency and persistency. You do not need to do all of these every day, but every day your children should have time devoted to matching sounds to print. We will never have the level of automatic word recognition we want without a great deal of practice.

Resources

1. Sound-symbol mapping sheets.

2. You Tube video on orthographic mapping.

3. Heart Word Magic from Really Great Reading.

4. University of Florida Literacy Institute's Heart Words resources.

In my last post, we discussed orthographic mapping and why it is crucial for reading success. Theory is great, but what every teacher wants to know is this-how does it look in practice? In it's simplest terms, we want to use activities that will help students focus on matching sound to print. Today, I want to talk about a variety of activities that you can use to promote orthographic mapping.

Phonemic awareness

Without phonemic awareness, orthographic mapping isn't possible. Children must be able to sequence and manipulate words at the phoneme level to be successful. You don't have to have a program. Instead, every day you can practice segmenting, blending, adding, deleting, or substituting. I've discussed phonemic awareness at length in other posts, so I won't belabor it here. But I couldn't write without highlighting the importance of this skill-you can't match sounds to print without a knowledge of the sounds.

How should you do it? Use the words you are using for your word study! Before introducing a new phonics skill, practice phonemic awareness tasks with the words. For example, if you were about to teach magic e, your students could practice segmenting words with short and long a. Just remember, however, that we need to take our phonemic awareness practices to print! After you have practiced your phonemic awareness tasks, make sure you are bridging those sounds to the graphemes that match those phonemes! I've moved the phonemic awareness portion of my lesson to right before I introduce a phonics rule, exactly for this reason.

Sound-symbol mapping

Sound-symbol mapping is a fantastic procedure to use for practicing new phonic rules or reviewing previous ones. The purpose of sound-symbol mapping is to assist students in matching phonemes to the graphemes that represent those sounds (sounds familiar, right? Are you tired of hearing me say that we need to match sounds to print?)

Here's the procedure:

1. Say a word. Have students repeat the word.

2. Tap the sounds.

3. Outline/color in the same number of boxes as sounds. (3 sounds = 3 boxes).

4. Fill in the letter(s) that represent those sounds. There may be more than 1 letter that represents a sound. For example, the word crash has 5 letters, but only 4 sounds. The sh goes in one box because it represents a single sound.

Time and time again, I hear teacher say how powerful this strategy has been for them. If you want to see this in action, check out my Facebook live on orthographic mapping. I start utilizing this technique around the 14:30 minute mark.

Using Elkonin Boxes

Before I introduce a new phonics rule, I use elkonin boxes to get students thinking about the sounds. For example, if I am teaching students ou and ow, I give them several pictures, like the ones on the right (cow, snout, couch, shower).

Before I even discuss the graphemes, we talk about the sounds. We use chips or buttons to represent each sound. After tapping sounds, I say something like "Where was the /ow/ sound in cow? snout? couch? shower?" Then I make the explicit connection between sounds and symbols. "When we hear the /ow/ sound in the middle, we use an ou. When we hear the /ow/ sound at the end of a syllable or word, we use the ow." I always try to make explicit the connection between phonemes and graphemes.

Rainbow sounds

When I was in the classroom, one of my favorite activities was rainbow words, where children write each word in a different colored marker or crayon. It's a fun activity, and one that is literally zero prep for the teacher. But I'm no longer convinced it is an effective strategy for word study. Ask yourself this-is it possible for the child to do this activity without being able to read or spell the word? If so, then we may need to rethink it.

One way we can focus on making the sound-symbol connection is by having children use a different color for every sound, NOT every letter. Take a look at the picture. If a child writes itch in 4 different colors, does it tell you anything about their spelling knowledge? If a child writes i-tch with two colors, that tells you that they have been paying attention to the sounds. Shoutout to Decodable Readers Australia, where I first heard about this technique!

Teaching heart words

Giving children flashcards with high-frequency words and expecting them to somehow remember those words is not an efficient strategy. There's an idea floating around in the teaching world that sight words are words we "just have to memorize because you can't sound them out." In fact, after I left college I thought sounding it out was an ineffective strategy for most words. Instead, I thought we should using the cueing strategies to promote word recognition. I cringe when I reflect on how I used to tell parents that children should be using the text clues, not phonics clues, to read the words.

The truth is, however, that we CAN sound out sight words. We just have to draw attention to the sounds that DO work before we talk about the ones that don't play fair. I have an entire blog post dedicated to this topic. At the bottom, I'll list some great free resources to help you get started!

Final Thoughts

I know what you're thinking. When am I supposed to do these activities? The great thing is this-all of these activities can be done whole-group or small group. Most of these activities don't require a lot of time each day. What many of them do require, however, is consistency and persistency. You do not need to do all of these every day, but every day your children should have time devoted to matching sounds to print. We will never have the level of automatic word recognition we want without a great deal of practice.

Resources

1. Sound-symbol mapping sheets.

2. You Tube video on orthographic mapping.

3. Heart Word Magic from Really Great Reading.

4. University of Florida Literacy Institute's Heart Words resources.

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Activities to Promote Orthographic Mapping - Campbell Creates Readers

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In my last post , we discussed orthographic mapping and why it is crucial for reading success. Theory is great, but what every teacher wants to know is this-how does it look in practice? In it's simplest terms, we want to use activities that will help students focus on matching sound to print.

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Thrive Literacy Corner - Thrive Educational Services

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This post may contain affiliate links, and I will earn a commission if you purchase through these links. Please read the disclosure policy for more details.

Orthographic mapping is the process where children learn to recognize each letter of the alphabet and how each letter represents one sound. It's how words become sight words. In this post, you'll learn about how orthographic mapping develops, and how to use phoneme grapheme mapping in your literacy instruction to develop students' orthographic mapping skills.

These phoneme grapheme mapping activities follow what the science of reading research shows is most effective for literacy instruction.

What is orthographic mapping?

Orthographic mapping, also called word mapping or phoneme-grapheme mapping, is how words become sight words.

Orthography refers to a system for representing sounds or spoken language with letters or other symbols, such as punctuation marks. Or it can refer to an individual's handwriting style or keyboarding technique because these motor skills are involved in writing out words phonetically (i.e., spelling). The term "orthography" also has a more specific meaning within linguistics: namely that of referring only to the appearance of written language on paper, excluding any consideration of the sound of speech.

Orthographic mapping is how students learn to recognize each letter of the alphabet and how each letter represents one sound. For example, if a student says "O" when you ask them what letter says its name (The letter O), this indicates that they have acquired orthographic mapping for that sound and letter.

This is not an activity that you can do - it's a mental process happening in the background as students learn to read.

What is the difference between decoding and orthographic mapping?

Decoding is breaking down words into sequences of sounds in order to determine the appropriate pronunciation. Orthographic mapping is recognizing the visual outline of a word and using that word without having to sound it out. It's recognizing the sequence of letters that makes the word.
Decoding looks like sounding out words, but if a word was already orthographically mapped it would be read instantly.
What are sight words?

Sight words are the words that we learn to recognize and read without having to sound them out or break them into parts.

As we continue to read, we build a sight word vocabulary. This is because words and word parts become orthographically mapped over time. They are now stored in long term memory.

If you're interested in teaching high frequency words (aka sight words) in a way that develops orthographic mapping, check out my Heart Words Method blog post.

How does orthographic mapping develop?

When children are learning to read, they first start by sounding out each individual sound within a word. They will still be building their vocabulary of sight words at the same time.

Over time, they begin to recognize patterns in what they are reading because certain sounds appear over and over again in words.

They will eventually be able to read these patterns/units quickly without sounding them out every time.

For example, say students have read the word mat so many times that they now come across pat and sat and can read the - at part quickly because it has been orthographically mapped.

When children are introduced to new words, they use their sight word vocabulary to decode the new word because they have already created orthographic maps for these words.

But for this to happen, students need to be proficient in phoneme awareness and have automatic letter-sound associations. Therefore, students need lots of activities focusing on phonemic awareness and letter-sound associations in the early years.

According to David Kilpatrick, Ph.D., author of Equipped for Reading Success, with explicit instruction of phoneme-grapheme relationships (e.g., letter/sound correspondence), children can begin to read new "pseudowords" as accurate as 30% of the time by the end of second grade and 100% accuracy by the end of third grade (page 65-66).

The Role of Advanced Phonemic Awareness in Orthographic Mapping

According to Kilpatrick, weak readers do not naturally acquire orthographic mapping because they lack advanced phonemic awareness skills.

For these students, it is important to provide intervention in phoneme addition, deletion, and substitution.

Below is an example:

1. Say the word nap. Have the student repeat it.

2. Ask them to say it again without the /n/. Be careful to say the sound /n/ and not the letter. The student should say -ap.

3. Ask them to say nap again, but this time instead of /n/ say /l/. The student should say lap.

4. Ask the student to say lap, but add a /s/ to the beginning. The student should say slap.

Now you would not actually do it as above as those tasks are on different difficulty levels, but I just wanted to give you an example of what advanced phonemic awareness tasks look like. You usually focus on one at a time, like just deleting the beginning sound, then you move on to deleting the ending sound.

Check out my daily Phonemic Awareness Task Cards for quick daily activities that include advanced phonemic awareness skills.

Phoneme Graphing Mapping Activities To Develop Orthographic Mapping

Aside from doing phonological and phonemic awareness activities like the ones above, phoneme-grapheme mapping also develops orthographic mapping.

What is Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping?

Phoneme grapheme mapping is a visual way to represent the relationship between phonemes (sounds) and their graphemes (letters). Students connect the sound they hear with the letter or letters that represent that sound.

This can also be called word mapping.

Word Mapping Activities

Here is how you would phoneme-grapheme map any word:

1. Say the word. Students repeat the word.

2. Finger tap the word to sound it out and count the phonemes.

3. Use a manipulative to represent each sound. You can draw something on the board, like a line or dot to do this. It helps to use a different color for each sound.

4. Spell each sound. Ask students what letters make the sound. Write the letters above the manipulative used to represent the sound. Students write the letters that represent each sound in the boxes.

5. Discuss any irregular spelling patterns. Talk about the origin of the word, or the rule or pattern to help students remember it. Draw a heart above the tricky letters. Tell students they need to remember this part by heart.

6. Ask questions relating to the sequence of the letters: What's the first sound? Which letter says /b/? What sound does the letter t say? What letter comes after the /b/ sound?

7. Students slide their finger across the line under the boxes while saying each sounds to blend the word.

8. Students read the word aloud.

9. Students write the word on the lines saying each letter as they write it.

You can grab my free template (pictured above) from my freebies library, or the paid version (pictured below) which includes teaching tips, lesson outline, and blank templates for words with 2 to 5 sounds.

I use the Heart Word Method for irregularly spelled high frequency words. You can read more about that here, and find my Heart Words Mapping templates below.

Elkonin Boxes

Long time readers know how I love Elkonin boxes! I use them all the time because they really help develop these critical reading skills all students need.

Use sound boxes with chips to count phonemes, match phonemes to sounds, write the graphemes (letters) in the boxes to spell words, blend sounds together, delete, add, and substitute sounds, and more!

Grab my free sound boxes template in my freebies library ( sign up here to access it).

Rimes

The rime is the word part that follows the onset of a word.

In the word sat, the onset is /s/ and the rime is /at/.

Working with rimes helps develop automaticity.

Start off with 2 sounds. Let's use the example word top. Start with /o/ and /p/. Have students map those 2 sounds and blend them together to say /op/.

Next, add a sound before the /op/. Say something like, "this manipulative says /t/" and place it before /op/. Ask students to say the new word. Ask them to underline /op/.

Do this with a few other words and ask students to find the letters that say /op/ in all the words.

Blending Drills With Rimes

Another rime activity is using phonogram cards (phonics sound spelling cards) to blend initial sounds with a rime.

Set up 3 piles of phonogram cards: the initial sound, and the 2 cards that make the rime. Then swap the initial letter so students can sound out the new word using the same rime.

Using the image below as an example, you would swap the p card to reveal a new letter. Continue swapping that initial sound. Students should focus on decoding that sound, and quickly blend it with /ain/ so they're not sounding out /ain/ every time the initial sound is changed.

You can buy the phonogram cards I use here.

Word Sorts

Word sorts work with rimes so be sure to teach rimes first.

You can create word sort walls in the classroom too, to display some of the rimes you have taught and have students practice drills blending the onset and rime.

Silicone Bubble Poppers

Students love using these bubble poppers and they're such a great tool for segmenting phonemes. Below you can see they can be used to listen to or say a word and pop a bubble for each sound they hear with the option of writing the word after. I have a free template for this bubble popper worksheet in my freebies library.

Sound Walls

Instead of a word wall, try a sound wall. Because sound walls focus on phonemes and their different graphemes, it's a great foundation. Students learn the sounds and the different spellings for each sound in a way that makes sense phonetically.

Check out my post on sound walls here. And you can grab my sound wall resources in my TPT shop to quickly and easily put a sound wall up in your room.

Bottom Line

I hope this post has helped you learn more about the process of orthographic mapping and how it affects literacy instruction. Hopefully, you can add some phoneme grapheme mapping activities to your lessons to help students develop their orthographic mapping skills.

And don't forget to check out my word mapping resources below!
Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers shop to see all my literacy products.
Sources:
Want to remember this? Save Orthographic Mapping Activities to your favorite Pinterest board!

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Phoneme Grapheme Mapping Activities For Orthographic Mapping

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This post may contain affiliate links, and I will earn a commission if you purchase through these links. Please read the disclosure policy for more details. Orthographic mapping is the process where children learn to recognize each letter of the alphabet and how each letter represents one sound.

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LETRS Unit 2 Participant Handouts_Fillable copy

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Language Comp. ideas from our colleagues

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Language Comp. ideas from our colleagues

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Thrive Literacy Corner - Thrive Educational Services

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The Heart Word Method for Teaching Sight Words & High Frequency Words

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130 Orton-Gillingham ideas | orton gillingham, gillingham, orton

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What Works in Teaching Children to Read:Whole Language or or Phonics?

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What Works in Teaching Children to Read:Whole Language or or Phonics?

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(1) what it takes for kids (and adults) TO LEARN TO READ;
(2) WHY SOME KIDS HAVE DIFFICULTIES; and
(3) how can we prevent and remediate reading failure.

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What Works in Teaching Children to Read:
Whole Language or or Phonics?

"Whole language" is embraced by some, cursed by many. For whom is it appropriate and for whom is it inappropriate? (Is it possible to tell in advance for whom it will work or won't work?) - David E. Rubin, MD, Medical director of Laboratory, Saint Anthony Community Hospital

Reid Lyon Answers

It is unfortunate that the debates surrounding whole language versus phonics continues to detract from the critical issue - what instructional approaches, strategies, and programs are most beneficial for which kids at which phases or reading development?

We are trying to help people move away from simplistic dichotomies like phonics versus whole language by ensuring that they fully understand:

(1) what it takes for kids (and adults) TO LEARN TO READ;
(2) WHY SOME KIDS HAVE DIFFICULTIES; and
(3) how can we prevent and remediate reading failure.

To answer these questions, we have to go to the converging scientific evidence. This is what the conclusions are at this time.

Learning to read is an extremely complicated process that requires many skills and abilities .

For example, kids need to understand the sounds of their language, how sounds (phonemes) link to the letters and letter patterns in written language (phonics), how to apply these skills accurately and rapidly and read with expression (fluency), how to develop vocabulary and world knowledge so that what they read can be linked to what they know about content, concepts, and the world, and how to actively deploy reading comprehension strategies to comprehend in an optimal fashion. For reading to develop, any program or approach must be comprehensive and to ensure instructional interactions of all these components.

Instruction must also be tailored so success is achieved and motivation to read continues and is enhanced.

The whole language question gives us an opportunity to examine the scientific evidence related to the philosophy under-girding whole language principles.

Whole language is hard to define because different people view it in different ways. It is a philosophy of instruction and learning, not a teaching method or program. Whole Language is a Philosophy, Not a Teaching Method

Many tenets of the whole language philosophy do not seem to be scientifically accurate. For example, whole language espouses the notion that learning to read and spell is like learning to speak. Therefore, kids can glean the form and structure of written language through exposure to context meaning-making activities that do not require direct instruction. This idea flows from the notion that learning to read is natural and develops in a similar fashion to listening and speaking. These philosophical notions have not been supported by scientific evidence.

Reading development takes place over a relatively proactive period of time where many of reading skills have to be very systematically and explicitly taught to kids.

One rule of thumb is that the more difficulties kids are having with learning to read, the more systematic and direct the instruction must be . Reading instruction must also be comprehensive and cover all components.

Even if kids are receiving direct instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension strategies, that does not mean that reading lessons should be dull, drab, or painful.

To reiterate, try to move away from the whole language-phonics debate and ask these questions:

1. What does the evidence tell us about what it takes to learn to read?

2. Does the instructional program or approach include all the critical reading components.

3. Have the teachers received the necessary professional development to be able to assess and target concepts for instruction?

4. Are we continuously assessing progress across all reading domains to ensure that instruction is adjusted for the student?

These adjustments may include teaching in a more sequenced and systematic way, providing additional clear examples, making sure that kids are reading text within their instructional reading level, ensuring that instructional material is personally and culturally meaningful to the student and so on.

Reading is complex!!! Teaching reading successfully requires a teacher who understands the reading process, assessment, and different forms of instruction to ensure that instruction is comprehensive and successful.

Teachers must know which programs are based upon solid evidence-based principles and are effective, and which programs are based on (incorrect) beliefs, philosophies, anecdotes, and untested assumptions.
Note from Wrightslaw : In October 2004, Education Week sponsored a Live Chatwith Dr. Reid Lyon, research psychologist and chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health. Dr. Lyon answered questions about reading programs, evidenced-based research, reading myths, and the Reading First program. This question and answer is from the transcript of that chat.

Meet Reid Lyon
Reading Recovery: Distinguishing Myths from Reality by William E. Tummer, Ph.D. and James W. Chapman, Ph.D.
G. Reid Lyon is a research psychologist and Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch of the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. He is a strong proponent of the scientific approach to reading instruction.

Resources

Teaching Reading IS Rocket Science, What Expert Teachers Should Know and Be Able to Do by Louisa Moats, published by the American Federation of Teachers. Using Research and Reason in Education - How Teachers Can Use Scientifically Based Research to Make Curricular & Instructional Decisions by Paula J. Stanovich and Keith E. Stanovich, published by the Partnership for Reading, May 2003. Because teachers find it difficult to stay current with research on effective instruction, this paper helps teachers become consumers of educational programs and materials, provides guidance on how to recognize scientifically based instructional strategies, how to use the concepts of research in the classroom.
Informed Instruction for Reading Success: Foundations for Teacher Preparation - A Position Paper of the International Dyslexia Association

Orton-Gillingham or Multisensory Structured Language Approaches from the International Dyslexia Association. The Science of Reading Research by G. Reid Lyon and Vinita Chhabra.

What Works Clearinghouse - U.S. Department of Education Educational Leadership, Vol 61, No. 6 (March 2004)

More about research based instruction.

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What Works in Teaching Children to Read? Whole Language or Phonics? by G. Reid Lyon - Wrightslaw

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What Works in Teaching Children to Read: Whole Language or or Phonics? "Whole language" is embraced by some, cursed by many. For whom is it appropriate and for whom is it inappropriate? (Is it possible to tell in advance for whom it will work or won't work?) - David E.