The Training Hut: Show the Code with MyWordz® technology, which shows the phonemes and graphemes for EVERY word.
What if we could support speech sound processing earlier?
What if we could make reading and spelling easier for all brains?
What if we could simply show the speech to print code?
Learn how to screen for dyslexia risk at age three
Please complete the Foundation Course before enrolling in this course.
Enrolment is by invitation only and is restricted to education professionals.
This Course is Coming Soon!
Dys-Code allows us to ask a different question long before children start school:
What seed do we have, and what does this seed need to develop strong roots?
By screening children at the age of three, we can understand their individual speech sound processing profile and identify the roots that need nourishment before they are taught with a synthetic phonics programme.
Structured Speech Sound Mapping provides that nourishment. It develops the foundations of reading and spelling through speech sound processing, phonemic awareness and phonological working memory and a clearer understanding of how speech and print connect.
The parent, early years educator or teacher is the water and sunshine, providing the daily interactions and responsive environment that allow those roots to grow. They understand how to use the tools, and to monitor growth.
Strong roots create a different route.
This is why we call it Re-Routing Dyslexia.
We are a team of Level 7 SEN and SpLD specialists with extensive experience in assessment, intervention and professional training. Our expertise has been shared internationally, including presentations at the World Literacy Summit, and through training delivered to educational professionals via the Professional Association of Teachers of Students with Specific Learning Difficulties (PATOSS).
Our experience has shown us that many children identified with dyslexia have already experienced years of difficulty before receiving support. This is why we are campaigning, through Phonics Reform England (PRE), for a free national roll-out of dyslexia risk screening for all three-year-olds. By identifying the 1 in 5 children at risk before formal phonics instruction begins, we can provide targeted support when intervention has the greatest potential to change outcomes.
Early identification should not be about waiting for children to fail. It should be about understanding how each child learns, giving families, early years practitioners and teachers the knowledge and tools they need to support speech, print and meaning from the very beginning.
Because system-wide change is often slow, we are making this crucial upstream dyslexia risk screening available to parents and early years educators at a subsidised rate, rather than waiting for national reform.
We'll show you how to screen children when they turn three and also how to screen a class of reception aged children on school entry. 135 children screened in 40 minutes!
Dys-Code describes upstream dyslexia risk screening and prevention for children aged 3+, designed to identify and support children before they are taught phonics, and before they experience reading failure when attempting to crack the written code.
Adapted from the 10-Day Speech Sound Play Plan used in Reception before explicit phonics instruction, Dys-Code uses structured speech sound play to reveal difficulties with phonemic awareness, phonological working memory, speech sound processing, and phoneme articulation. Rather than waiting until children start learning phonics,
Dys-Code helps identify those at increased risk and provides immediate support through playful, evidence-informed activities. This gives parents, nurseries and early years practitioners the opportunity to strengthen the foundations needed for successful bi-directional word mapping, the process that underpins reading and spelling and can be developed long before a child starts school. By supporting children to unlock the speech-to-print code early, Dys-Code aims to reduce the likelihood that literacy difficulties associated with dyslexia will emerge later.
Learn how to do this in the Foundation Course.
Speech Sound Mapping is essential for children who screen as high risk of dyslexia.
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We don't screen for dyslexia at age 3. We screen for risk.
We start with an adapted version of the Ten Day Speech Sound Play Plan used in Reception classrooms using visual prompts built from six speech sounds, for example pin, sip and tap. After a short period of play, which can easily be integrated into nursery sessions, we see which children can give the sounds for the words when shown the visual prompt and which can identify the correct visual prompt when given the sounds. Children can respond verbally or by clicking the Phonemies® on the Monster Spelling Piano app or MyWordz.
What this does is expose underlying speech sound processing difficulties that often don't become visible until a child is taught phonics. It allows us to identify children who may need support with phonemic awareness and phonological working memory before formal instruction begins.
It also helps us support parents who may understandably assume their child will learn to read without difficulty. By identifying risk early, they can begin strengthening speech-to-print connections through everyday interactions.
Children who start school with strong phonemic awareness are far less likely to struggle when reading instruction begins. Until the education system moves away from a wait-to-fail model, screening early and empowering parents are our best weapons against literacy struggles.
Speech Sound Mapping leads to earlier and easier reading and spelling for at-risk brains because it builds from speech to print and makes phoneme–grapheme mapping visible. This especially benefits the 1 in 5 children who are likely to struggle to connect speech, print and meaning when introduced to traditional print-to-speech phonics instruction.
During the Speech Sound Play Plan, the focus is on just six phonemes and their Phonemie® characters to reduce cognitive load, as children in England are likely to start with that grapheme–phoneme grouping within synthetic phonics ie <s> <a> <t> <p> <i> <n>
Speech Sound Mapping starts earlier than phonics, and wires the brain for bi-directional word mapping.
Prevention is easier, and far less costly, both emotionally and financially, than intervention.
Thank fully Rory's Mum enrolled him onto a Speech Sound Play 'prevention' pilot and we prevented the dyslexia paradox using an intensive version of Speech Sound Mapping.
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This is so much easier when we screen for risk at age 3 however!
Dys-Code®: Early Risk Screening for Dyslexia (Age 3+)
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Dys-Code helps identify children who may be at risk of later literacy difficulties before they start school. Rather than waiting for reading failure, it screens underlying risk factors such as speech sound awareness, phonological processing, verbal memory and articulation, allowing practitioners to put preventative support in place during the critical early years.
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In Australia, we were not constrained by a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching the Core Code. We created a whole-class learning environment based around identifying the 'pictures of the speech sounds' in which we sought out at-risk children from the very beginning and ensured every child had the conditions they needed to flourish.
This was possible because children learned the Core Code at their own pace using technology, freeing the teacher to observe each seed, monitor how it was growing, and provide the right nourishment when needed. This was the Speech Sound Pics (SSP) Approach.
The 10 Day Speech Sound Play Plan was the starting point. In a classroom setting, we were able to identify the 1 in 5 from the first week of Reception and immediately begin targeting their speech sound processing challenges.
We also carried out large-scale monitoring following the plan. The video at the top of the page shows me assessing the blending and segmenting skills of 135 children in just 40 minutes. The assessment used words made only from the target sounds introduced in the 10 Day Speech Sound Play Plan, which at the time were referred to as SSP Phase 1.