Have you ever heard of the term ‘Orthographic Mapping’ and wondered what it meant?  All the jargon associated with the Science of Reading can be so confusing and it has taken me a while and lots of learning to get my head around it.  

Now that I have, I want to share with you how this concept has proven to be a game-changer in my reading instruction and hopefully convince you to add it to your toolbox.

Orthographic Mapping is a process that happens in the brain.

Do you want to dramatically improve your student’s reading skills? Understanding orthographic mapping is a huge key.

I want to encourage you to stay with me as we explore how orthographic mapping works and also how to use phoneme-grapheme mapping boxes to empower our students to become confident readers.

What is orthographic mapping?

Orthographic mapping is a fascinating process that occurs in the brain.  It involves connecting the sounds we hear in spoken language to the symbols we see in written language.

According to David Kilpatrick, orthographic mapping is

“the mental process we use to permanently store words for immediate, effortless retrieval. It is the process we use to take an unfamiliar printed word and turn it into an immediately recognisable word.” Kilpatrick, 2015

“When we encounter a word, our brain maps the sounds of that word to its corresponding graphemes (letters), allowing us to recognize and understand it. Alongside this mapping of sounds and symbols, our brain also records how to pronounce the sounds, how to articulate them in our mouths, and the meaning of that word.”

You can read all about how we first need to learn the sounds of our language in this blogpost all about Phonemic Awareness.

What is the process that makes words into sight words?

So much information gets stored in our brain and then as those connections are reviewed and practiced, those words become sight words to us.  This means that they are retrieved automatically.  It is as if the whole word just pops out. The words have become sight words.

Still confused? I know…it’s a lot to get your head around. Don’t worry, we’ll get there together. Take a look at the visual below.

As adult, fluent readers, we don’t recognise the work that our brains are doing to decode each word because our brains have stored these words in our ‘orthographic lexicon’ as sight words. 

You are more than likely reading through the words in this post without sounding out each sound. That’s because most of these words are stored for you and all the information you need to read it fluently are retrieved from your Othographic Processor. Amazing isn’t it!

Let’s look at an example of a word that may not be in your ‘sight word’ storage – you most likely will need to sound them out:-

‘Lachrymation’

• The abnormal or excess flow of tears

‘Arachibutyrophobia‘

• the fear of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth 😄

Did you have to slow down to read those words?

Most people haven’t read those words often enough to read them automatically. As you sounded those words out, you got to experience what it is like for our dyslexic students and those learning to read.

Orthographic Mapping is Vital for Dyslexic Students

Dyslexia makes reading a lot like driving a manual car instead of an automatic. Using phoneme-grapheme word mapping exercises in our structured literacy lessons will strengthen those automatic links in the brain, helping our struggling readers unlock the code.

Are you starting to see how important this concept is for our dyslexic students?

What is the link between spelling and reading?

Many people are unaware that the act of writing, known as ‘encoding’ in the teaching world, is closely connected to the skill of reading.  We shouldn’t be teaching reading and spelling apart from each other.  

For a child to become a fluent reader, they must be able to segment words into sounds and blend those sounds to make the word.  This process is strengthened by writing these sounds down.

Phoneme-Grapheme Word Mapping Boxes

This is where the power of using phoneme-grapheme word-mapping boxes comes in.  These were first pioneered by a Russian Psychologist by the name of D.B Elkonin.  That is why you may have heard them called ‘Elkonin Boxes’.  

This process of mapping sounds into boxes and writing one sound per box strengthens the connections between the sound and the symbol and promotes orthographic mapping in the brain.

How to use phoneme-grapheme word mapping within a structured literacy lesson.

I have seen the power of using phoneme-grapheme word mapping within my dyslexia intervention lessons.  The practice of writing down one sound per box really helps students to form those connections in the brain and I have seen it transform their spelling and reading skills.

Word mapping unlocks the code for them and feeds into every part of their literacy journey.

Step by step – how I promote orthographic mapping.

Here are the steps that I take to use phoneme-grapheme word mapping within a lesson.  You can use this exercise in a small group lesson or a 1-1 tutoring session.

Firstly, I choose one skill to work on.  Let’s use the example of the letters ‘ai’ saying the long /a/ sound.

Next, I would explicitly tell them that the letters ‘ai’ together say the long ‘ay’ sound and then I get them to write ‘ai’ across the page whilst saying the sound out loud.

Then I will need to find a list of words with that sound. I have posters with word lists here that you can use for this purpose.

After that, I set up mapping boxes on a page.  You can find many free word mapping templates online. Here is a free mapping template I have made for this purpose. You can download it here. Alternatively, you can purchase my whole word mapping resource here with cute characters for building engagement. Check them out here. ⬇️

Now let the fun practice begin!

• Say the word ‘pain’ out loud and have your student/s repeat it back to you.
• Now get your students to segment (split the word up) into sounds. They can use their fingers or touch counters by putting one finger up per sound or pushing one counter into a sound box on the template.
• Now get your students to write down the grapheme (letter or letters) for each sound into the box.

• Finally, I get my students to read the word, sound by sound, blending the sounds and then writing the word down without the boxes.
• As an extension, I will incorporate these words into sentences for dictation later on in the lesson.

I have found the use of word-mapping within my structured literacy lessons to be one of the quickest, most effective activities to promote the orthographic mapping of words in the brain.

If you haven’t tried this yet, why not give it a go and incorporate word mapping boxes into your next structured literacy lesson? You’ll be building vital connections in the reading brain.

Now let’s get mapping.

You may like to take a look at these resources to help you on your teaching journey. Click on the Logo to find the resources pictured below.

You may also find these articles and websites helpful on your learning journey.

Reading Rockets Blog all about Orthographic Mapping

UFLI Instructional Activities

If your child or student is struggling and you would like some guidance, I have a free step-by-step guide for parents and teachers of struggling readers that you can sign up to download. This will show you what to do if you suspect a learning difficulty such as dyslexia and will put you on the right track to get them the help that they need.