When a dyslexic child is shown the code, they can see which letters form the graphemes and the sound value of each grapheme in the word. This gives them access to information they may not be able to work out independently and may not previously have been shown.

Instead of being left to guess, memorise the word as a visual shape or rely on an incomplete decoding attempt, the child can see how the whole written word maps to the spoken word.

When a dyslexic child begins to map words successfully, the brain starts building reliable connections between three forms of the same word:

• how the word sounds

• how the word is spelt

• what the word means

At first, reading requires considerable conscious effort. The child must identify the graphemes, retrieve their sound values, hold those sounds in phonological working memory, blend them and search their oral vocabulary for a matching word. If their phonemic representations are unclear or the grapheme–phoneme mapping is insecure, this process is slow, effortful and error-prone.

Showing the code reduces that uncertainty. The technology makes the structure of the word visible, showing the child exactly which letters work together as graphemes and the sound value of each grapheme in that word. The child can then blend through the word accurately and connect the resulting pronunciation with meaning.

The same information supports spelling in the opposite direction. The child can start with the spoken word, identify its phonemes and see the graphemes that represent them. This is why bidirectional mapping matters: the connections are strengthened for both reading and spelling.

When the child maps a word successfully, its letter sequence becomes bonded to its pronunciation and meaning. This isn’t the brain memorising the word as a visual picture. It is establishing a word-specific, interconnected representation of its orthography, phonology and meaning.

Each successful mapping encounter strengthens that representation. The printed word begins to activate its pronunciation and meaning more rapidly, with less need for conscious, serial decoding. This reduces the load on phonological working memory and frees cognitive capacity for fluency and comprehension.

Showing the code doesn’t do the learning for the child. It gives the child the accurate information needed to learn from the encounter. As more words become securely mapped, the child becomes increasingly able to use existing alphabetic-code knowledge, partial decoding, phonological recoding and set for variability to work out unfamiliar words independently.

Successful phonological recoding then enables the child to learn additional printed words without needing every word to be explicitly taught. This is the basis of the self-teaching process.

At the neural level, increasing reading expertise is associated with greater specialisation and coordination within the predominantly left-sided reading network. This includes systems involved in analysing speech sounds and connecting them with print, alongside the left ventral occipitotemporal region, which supports increasingly rapid recognition of familiar written words. Dyslexic readers often show less efficient or differently distributed activation within this network, although there is substantial variation between children.

Successful intervention can change how these reading systems function. Behavioural progress is much easier to establish reliably than one universal neurological pathway.

So, in practical terms, the transition is:

Effortful word-by-word processing → being shown the code → successful phonological–orthographic mapping → increasingly automatic word recognition → independent orthographic learning

That is the self-teaching phase. The child no longer needs someone to teach them every word. Each successful encounter helps the brain map and retain more words, enabling increasingly independent reading and spelling. The technology remains available whenever the child encounters a word they cannot yet map for themselves: If they don’t know it, SHOW IT!