The Training Hut: Stop Explaining English. Show the Code. Guided Self-Teaching for All Neurotypes
Structured Speech Sound Mapping (SSSM)
This Course is Coming Soon!
Speech Sound Mapping describes a ‘speech first’ approach to mapping words, with the phonemes clearly identified BEFORE mapping the ‘pictures of the speech sounds’, the graphemes, in the moment the child needs to map a word.
When a child looks at a word and cannot immediately decode it, we first give the full spoken word, segment it into speech sounds, and then assign letters as graphemes and map through the word from left to right.
When spelling an unfamiliar word, we start by using Duck Hands® to segment the word, drawing the speech sound lines and numbers, then looking at the word and mapping the Sound Pics® to the speech sound lines.
This addresses underlying phonemic awareness and phonological working memory challenges and makes sense of an opaque orthography without explaining it or asking children to guess, memorise or learn spelling rules.
Whereas Speech Sound Mapping is used in the moment and can be checked independently using the technology, Structured Speech Sound Mapping refers to a programme that parents and teachers can use as soon as dyslexia risk has been identified through Dys-Code when children turn three.
Re-Routing Dyslexia
For many years, dyslexia was described as an unexpected difficulty with learning to read. The term became controversial because it became linked to IQ discrepancy models, where some children were denied identification or support because their measured intelligence was not considered high enough.
However, the concept of unexpected captured something important. When a child did not learn through the same route as their peers, it was a signal to stop and ask:
Why is this child not thriving in these conditions?
The problem is not only that most teachers aren't trained to understand what those children now need but that we have been asking this question too late.
No farmer would assume that every seed is the same. They would not plant every seed in the same soil, provide the same amount of water and sunshine, and then wait to see which plants failed before changing the conditions.
Yet this is exactly what we do with early literacy.
Children arrive at school with different speech sound processing profiles, different levels of phonemic awareness, different phonological working memory capacities and different oral language experiences. Yet they are all placed onto the same initial route into reading and spelling.
In England, that route is a Synthetic Phonics programme. When children do not thrive through that route, the current system is to provide more of the same approach, often for longer, in smaller groups or one-to-one. The intention is to help the child catch up, but the question remains: was this the right route for that particular seed in the first place?
This question is even more important because English is one of the most complex alphabetic systems in the world. Unlike transparent orthographies, for example Finnish, where a speech sound is represented consistently by a single symbol, English has many different ways of representing the same speech sound and many graphemes that represent multiple speech sounds.
For example, the grapheme <a> can represent at least nine different speech sounds, as in ant, any, father, was, orange, scary, water, another and table. The second speech sound in for, represented by the grapheme <or>, can be represented by more than 25 different graphemes across English. Please see the Speech Sound Clouds. We cannot explicitly teach them all.
We know that thousands of children start school each year with differences in the very roots needed for literacy. Yet we continue to put every seed onto the same route and then wait to see which ones do not flourish. Around 1 in 5 children do not pass the Phonics Screening Check after two years of instruction, and around 1 in 4 do not reach the expected standard in reading and spelling by the end of primary school. The cost to the child, and to society, is far too high.
Phonics Reform England (PRE) was launched because this model must change. However, it centres on what happens after children start school.
In healthcare, we do not wait until children become seriously ill before taking preventative action. We immunise children because we understand risk and know that preventing problems is more effective than trying to address them once they have become established.
Why do we not take the same approach with literacy?
Dys-Code with Structured Speech Sound Mapping is our opportunity to provide an immunisation against illiteracy.
Rather than waiting for children to experience at least two years of difficulty in Reception and Year One before changing the conditions, we can identify dyslexia risk before children start school.
Long before children start school, at the age of three, we can screen to understand what seed we have and what that seed needs.
The roots of literacy include oral language, speech sound processing, phonemic awareness and phonological working memory. These roots can be strengthened through everyday interactions, communication and play. Children who are non-speaking or not yet speaking can also develop these roots through MySpeekie® Thought to Voice technology, using Phonemies® to explore speech sounds, build words and communicate.
Structured Speech Sound Mapping provides the nourishment that develops these roots. It is a speech-first approach, where children learn that spoken words are made up of speech sounds and that print is a way of representing those sounds.
The parent, early years educator or teacher is the water and sunshine, providing the responsive interactions, opportunities and environment that allow that particular seed to grow.
When we understand the seed, upstream, we can develop the right roots.
When we strengthen the roots, we change the route.
That is Re-Routing Dyslexia.
Rather than waiting for children to experience years of difficulty and then asking what went wrong, we ask the question from the very beginning:
What does this seed need to become a confident reader and speller?
Is this the 1 in 5 seed that will not thrive with the conditions being offered to the whole class?
The "Teach every child as if they have dyslexia" idea.
Many years ago, campaigners argued that systematic Synthetic Phonics programmes should be mandated so that every child would receive explicit instruction in the alphabetic code. The argument was that all children should be taught as if they were at risk of dyslexia, ensuring that no child was left to infer the code without direct teaching.
The DfE adopted this approach and created its own programme, Letters and Sounds. It later moved away from this programme and introduced the validation of Synthetic Phonics programmes, based on an interpretation of the evidence that skilled readers understand the alphabetic principle and that explicit instruction in the alphabetic code is important.
However, understanding what skilled readers know is not the same as understanding how every child should be taught. Knowing that a plant needs roots, water and sunshine does not mean that every seed requires the same soil, the same amount of water, or the same route to flourish.
Although schools are not required to adopt a validated programme, government funding has been linked to these programmes and the wider system has been structured around them as the expected route. As a result, most schools have chosen validated Synthetic Phonics programmes.
After many years of this one-route approach, the outcomes show that it has not enabled every seed to flourish. Around 1 in 5 children still do not pass the Phonics Screening Check after two years of instruction, and around 1 in 4 do not reach the expected standard in reading and spelling by the end of primary school.
At the same time, another issue has emerged. As Mark Seidenberg discusses in his recent writing, some children may have been held back by too much explicit instruction. They may have benefited from earlier access to richer, meaningful texts, using their oral language, partial decoding and self-teaching abilities to develop as readers.
The lesson from both ends of the spectrum is the same. The answer is not to assume that every seed needs the same route. Some seeds need their roots strengthened before they start school. Others are ready to branch out and grow beyond a restricted route much earlier.
Dys-Code and Structured Speech Sound Mapping offer a different way forward. We understand the seed, strengthen the roots that need nourishment, and provide the right conditions for every seed to flourish.