Why Show the Code with Mapped Words?
How are words mapped to show learners how speech and print connect?
When we Code Map words, we are showing which letters are the graphemes in THAT word.
But we use Phonemies® as a Speech Sound Code, so that learners know how to pronounce the graphemes and, therefore, how to pronounce the word.
Show the Code™. Less Teaching. More Guided Self-Teaching.
Both of these children were soon reading, as shown the word code.
Avery, because he was shown the code when he was a toddler.
Alf, because the EP recommended stopping synthetic phonics and starting this instead.
Until secure with the Monster Sounds simply use the Phonemies screen
Showing which letters form graphemes in real words can support orthographic learning because it makes the letter-sound structure of English visible at the point where children are actually reading and spelling. Instead of having to infer which letters belong together, they can attend to the correct units immediately.
Showing which letters form graphemes in real words can support orthographic learning because it makes the letter-sound structure of English visible at the point where children are actually reading and spelling. Instead of having to infer which letters belong together, they can attend to the correct units immediately.
Some reasons this may help include:
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It reduces ambiguity. English is full of multi-letter graphemes such as <sh>, <igh>, <ea> and <tch>. If these are not marked, beginners may treat each letter separately, leading to inaccurate decoding and spelling attempts.
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It focuses attention on the functional units of the writing system. Orthographic learning depends on forming connections between phonemes and graphemes. Highlighting grapheme boundaries helps learners notice the units that consistently represent speech sounds.
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It reduces cognitive load. Working out where graphemes begin and end uses cognitive resources. When that information is shown, more attention can be devoted to recognising the word, understanding its pronunciation, and remembering its spelling.
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It strengthens repeated exposure. Every encounter with a mapped word reinforces the same grapheme patterns. Over time, learners become less reliant on the visual support because they begin to recognise those patterns automatically.
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It supports self-teaching. According to Share's self-teaching hypothesis, each successful decoding opportunity contributes to orthographic learning. If grapheme boundaries make decoding more accurate, they can increase the likelihood that the learner stores the word's spelling correctly.
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It helps with spelling as well as reading. Children learn not only which phonemes are in a word, but which letters work together to represent them. This strengthens the bidirectional links needed for spelling.
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It reflects the structure of the orthography. English is organised around graphemes, not individual letters. Making graphemes visible aligns instruction with how the writing system actually represents spoken language.
Morphology is integrated
Very young children are able to explore morphology, but in a way that makes sense to them and begins with phoneme-to-grapheme mapping.
We start with the spoken word and map it backwards. If we say the word like this, what are the phonemes? Then, what are the graphemes?
From there, children naturally begin to notice patterns in how words change. They explore morphology by seeing how speech and print connect, rather than by memorising spelling rules. This aligns with DfE expectations.
Morphology is a natural partner to word mapping of phonemes and graphemes, as is etymology where useful.
After mapping words into phonemes and graphemes, as expected within phonics, most Early Years teachers naturally extend the exploration to morphology. So this can, and should, happen during Reception and Year 1 because we’re interested in the word as a whole and in modelling that interest with children.
I say this because I’m seeing various phonics vs morphology arguments all over social media (likely the algorithms trying to annoy me!), yet real teachers give children what they need, when they need it. So both!
When we ask children to look at the <ed> suffix here, it can be especially useful for those learning English because we’re linking the mapping, including morpheme mapping, to pronunciation. For example, the <ed> suffix in started, jumped and played looks the same but is pronounced differently.
Let’s think of word mapping as a way to embrace anything that’s useful in that moment. This includes the child’s own experiences.
And let’s move away from this ‘either/or’ thinking and towards, ‘What’s most helpful here for each individual?’
I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted by it all. We had the whole language vs phonics debate. Hopefully we’ve now moved towards, ‘How can we best support orthographic knowledge, and how much explicit phonics instruction does each individual in my class need?’
Let’s not start a phonics vs morphology war as well!
Emma Hartnell-Baker