"On a mission to inspire every child to read, learn, and find joy in books. To achieve this, we must stop making learning to read so difficult for so many."

Recognising graphemes in words is an essential skill in decoding unfamiliar words, and even skilled readers who have never formally been taught phonics instinctively rely on these skills. Phonics instruction provides an explicit understanding of the relationship between phonemes (the smallest units of sound in speech) and graphemes (the letters or letter combinations that represent those sounds in writing). However, the ability to decode unfamiliar words is not exclusive to those with formal phonics training—readers naturally develop these skills through exposure to language.
 

Even skilled readers, who may not have been taught phonics in a structured way, unconsciously apply these principles when encountering new words. Whether they realise it or not, they use grapheme-phoneme mapping to decode unfamiliar words by breaking them down into familiar parts. This process involves recognising the letters or letter groups that represent certain sounds, matching those to their phonemes, and then assembling the sounds to pronounce the word. For example, when encountering a word like "quixotic," an adult who has never been explicitly taught phonics can still break the word into graphemes and decode it based on their implicit knowledge of how the written code works.

This automatic, unconscious application of phonics skills shows that word decoding relies heavily on phoneme-grapheme correspondences, even if a reader hasn't been explicitly taught how to use them. The more experience a reader has with language, the more seamlessly they apply these skills, often without being aware of it. This also explains why proficient readers can easily pick up new words or unfamiliar vocabulary—they rely on their phonics-based knowledge to map unfamiliar words onto known phonemes and graphemes. They are constantly 'self-teaching' themselves how words are mapped. 
 

For teachers, it is crucial to have a deep understanding of phoneme-to-grapheme mapping, as it directly impacts their ability to help children learn to decode and encode words. Teachers who haven’t been trained in this skill may struggle with what’s known as "orthographic interference"—when their own spelling knowledge gets in the way of accurately helping children with phonics. If teachers can't recognise and map phonemes and graphemes effectively, they might pass on confusion to their students, limiting their ability to develop solid reading and spelling skills.
 

The teacher screening tool being developed by The Reading Hut Ltd aims to address these gaps. By assessing teachers' proficiency in word mapping and offering targeted training, it ensures that teachers can develop Word Mapping Mastery. This helps them not only overcome orthographic interference but also better support children in developing the crucial decoding and encoding skills that are essential for becoming independent, proficient readers.

In short, whether formally taught or instinctively developed, the ability to recognise graphemes and apply phonics principles is a key skill for decoding unfamiliar words. Even adults who never received explicit phonics instruction rely on these processes, showing how foundational this knowledge is for literacy.

The Code Mapping Tool shows students AND teachers the graphemes in words. ​