Why this is so different.
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As SEN and dyslexia specialists, we show parents and teachers how to teach phonics differently. Learn how to make both the graphemes and their sounds visible, so that it makes sense to every brain. Start with Speech Sound Play in the early years.
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For years, we’ve known that children need to connect speech sounds with the letters that represent them.
But phonics programmes usually start with print.
Teachers are asked to show children isolated graphemes, tell them the sound each one represents and ask them to remember it.
Some children can't even pronounce them yet.
Then parents and teachers are expected to reverse the process: listen for the sounds in words and choose the right graphemes for spelling.
That creates a problem.
English doesn’t work as a simple grapheme = speech sound code.
A grapheme can represent different speech sounds in different words. A speech sound can be represented by many different graphemes. A child may never have seen a word before, so why would they know which grapheme represents that sound in this word?
And the speech sounds they use may not even be the sounds being used during instruction.
Accents and pronunciation matter.
Children bring their own speech to phonics.
The same written word can be pronounced differently by different speakers. Names make this particularly obvious. Before mapping someone’s name, you may need to ask:
“How do YOU pronounce it?”
The spelling hasn’t changed. The speech sounds have.
So why teach phonics as though there is only one sound mapping?
We don’t make the child’s speech fit the phonics. We map the print to their speech.
Start by making speech sounds visible.
Phonemies® are Phonetic Symbols for Kids.
They give children a visual Speech Sound Code, so speech sounds are no longer something they only have to hear, hold in working memory and remember.
Children can see the sounds, hear them, segment them, blend them and manipulate them while learning how those sounds connect with print.
We start with Speech Sound Play, developing phonemic awareness while introducing the visual Speech Sound Code.
Then we systematically teach the Core Code bidirectionally.
Speech → Print
Which speech sounds are in the word? Which graphemes represent those sounds in THIS word?
Print → Speech
Which letters are the graphemes? Which speech sounds do they represent in THIS word?
If pronunciation differs, we can change the Phonemies® to represent the sounds that speaker actually uses.
Same spelling. Different pronunciation. Accurate mapping.
You can keep the same systematic phonics teaching order to teach the Core Code tested in the PSC.
Teaching Word Mapping differently doesn’t mean abandoning a familiar phonics progression.
In a Reception classroom, we can still start with:
s a t p i n and continue systematically through the Core Code in the same teaching order as an existing phonics programme.
What changes is how we teach it. As seen in Speech Sound Pics (SSP) Approach classroomsh in Australia, where synthetic phonics is not mandated, as it is in England. We hope that changes.
Instead of presenting an isolated grapheme and asking the child to remember a sound value, we also make the speech sound visible and explicitly map the relationship in both directions.
Children still systematically learn the graphemes and their sound values.
But now they’re also learning how speech and print connect bidirectionally in words.
But the words children can explore aren’t restricted to the graphemes taught so far.
This is where the visual Speech Sound Code changes what’s possible.
When Phonemies® are shown, a child can see and blend the speech sounds to identify the word, even if the word contains a grapheme they haven’t yet been taught or whose sound value they can’t retrieve.
They can then look at the written word and discover:
Which letters represent those speech sounds in THIS word?
So we can maintain a carefully sequenced Core Code for explicit instruction without restricting children to words containing only the code taught so far.
They can explore the words that matter to them.
Their name.
Their favourite food.
A country.
A dinosaur.
A Roblox character.
A word they’ve encountered in a book.
Any word.
The goal is earlier self-teaching.
We’re not removing phonics. We are making phonics easier for every child to learn.
We do this by changing how children experience the relationship between speech and print.
Rather than relying only on an ever-growing bank of explicitly taught grapheme–sound correspondences, children develop the phonemic awareness and bidirectional Word Mapping skills that enable them to use what they already know to investigate what they don’t.
The aim is to reduce unnecessary cognitive load and move children towards the point where they can increasingly figure out unfamiliar words and learn new spellings for themselves.
That’s the self-teaching phase.
Teach phonics differently. The Reading Hut, home of Word Mapping Mastery, will show you how.
Make speech sounds visible.
Systematically teach the Core Code.
Map speech → print and print → speech.
Respect accents and pronunciation.
Show the Code™ for words beyond the code taught so far.
Move children towards self-teaching as early as possible.
Less teaching. More guided self-teaching.
We show people how to work through the Core Code and 400 HFWs systematically, at home or in the classroom, but at all times you will be mapping words bidirectionally with each child. Resources are created to facilitate independent learning.
Code Level Readers (Decodable / Phonics Readers)
We create Code Level readers, as seen in regular phonics programmes, containing the GPCs children have already been explicitly taught. What makes ours different is that the words are Code Mapped® to show which letters are the graphemes. A few samples are shown below. The children already know the sound values of those graphemes and are developing fluency. The mapping makes the structure of each word visible, reinforcing the correspondences they are focusing on and supporting accurate spelling during linked writing activities.
We teach phonics differently by making speech sounds visible and mapping speech and print bidirectionally.
Another Important Difference: Moving Beyond the Known Code
As seen in SpellO Sentences, these texts deliberately include unfamiliar words and GPCs.
That’s the point.
Rather than restricting children to text containing only the grapheme-phoneme correspondences they have already been explicitly taught, we encourage them to explore regular text and start figuring out unfamiliar words for themselves.
They can use what they already know, partial decoding, context and Set for Variability to work out the unknown parts.
When they encounter a GPC they don’t know, they don’t need an adult to tell them. They can check the Monster Mapped® version, where the graphemes and their sound values are shown using Phonemies®. They find the correspondence they need, then return to the regular text and carry on.
This is guided self-teaching. We call it the Transition Phase.
It’s also why we introduce the Village With Three Corners series when children reach a specific stage.
The 36 pre-readers and 16 introductory readers are available as Monster Mapped®, Code Mapped® and regular-text versions. We can guide children to build on their existing orthographic knowledge and figure out more and more for themselves, as independently as possible.
The aim is to give them the tools to use what they already know to figure out what they don’t.
The Other Side: Spelling
Being able to figure out an unfamiliar word when reading doesn’t necessarily mean the complete mapping has been secured for spelling. A child may have used partial decoding, context and Set for Variability to identify the word without attending to every grapheme and its sound value.
So, even when they read the regular text successfully, we then use the Code Mapped® version for spelling.
The child works through the words in speech sounds while attending to the segmented graphemes. This allows us to check that they know how each speech sound is represented in the word and secure the complete mapping for spelling.
If they’re unsure of a sound value, they can again check the Monster Mapped® version.
This bidirectional mapping means we’re not just checking whether they can figure out the word when reading. We’re also ensuring that the mapping needed to spell it is secure.
Our role is to check the mapping, identify anything they’ve missed, check vocabulary knowledge and support comprehension.
Regular text: Figure out unfamiliar words when reading.
Monster Mapped®: Check unfamiliar GPCs when needed, then return to the regular text.
Code Mapped®: Secure the mapping for spelling.
As much explicit instruction as they need, and no more.