The Reading Hut®
"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."
"One-size-fits-all synthetic phonics programmes turn too many children into instructional casualties. Recognising that every child is unique, with different interests and 'AttentiA,' we must move beyond these approaches that fail at least 1 in 4, ensuring that all children have the chance to succeed. By unblocking—when necessary—each child's unique learning code, we free them to learn to read with ease. No child should be failed."
Emma Hartnell-Baker
Speech Sound Mapping Theory
Word Mapping Mastery
Every Child an Avid Reader by 7
Written by the Neurodivergent Reading Whisperer®
What is the Speech Sound Mapping Theory? It is a theory related to preventing reading difficulties, as explained in the new book. Children need to connect speech sounds (phonemes), spelling (graphemes), and meaning. At a specific point, they start to 'self-teach'. (Share, 1994, Ehri 2014)
Not all children need to be taught a phonics programme, and many require very little instruction. What we need is to help children reach the 'self-teaching' phase as quickly and easily as possible, so they can READ and learn more about reading by reading!
In discussions about children's reading difficulties, the focus is often on helping those who are already struggling. But a crucial question remains: Why are children facing these difficulties in the first place?
As Noam Chomsky notes, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion while allowing very lively debate within that spectrum.” (From How the World Works)
Current debates focus on the assumption that all children need explicit synthetic phonics teaching throughout Key Stage 1. These debates then centre on how to help children who struggle with reading, rarely questioning why the system allows or even expects these struggles to occur.
Advocates of whole-class synthetic phonics programmes in Key Stage 1 believe they are preventing reading difficulties, but they often ignore evidence showing that this one-size-fits-all approach can actually create more problems. Rose suggested giving the mandate six years. That period ended in 2012, and it’s clear the decision was flawed—fewer children can read by age 11 now, leaving many unsure how to address the failures.
By accepting that some children will inevitably struggle, we reinforce a system that profits from failure rather than preventing it. It’s time to broaden the debate and focus on creating a system where all children are set up for success from the start.
Mandating whole-class synthetic phonics programmes and Year 1 testing of single words with specific GPCs (only 100 or so out of the 350+ used daily) not only creates instructional casualties (at least 1 in 4) but also contributes to an anxiety crisis, a school avoidance crisis, and potentially a pipeline to prison.
Far too many children do not start to store words in their orthographic lexicon because the three elements are not being 'glued' together. The activities taught within synthetic phonics assume that phonemic awareness will naturally develop, and as The Simple View is embraced—that decoding words facilitates comprehension sequentially—there is not a significant focus on comprehension or meaning during phonics lessons. Since the GPCs are so restricted, there aren't many words to explore. The ability to deduce words and figure out new correspondences using the available 'cues' is also not encouraged. This negatively impacts the learning of new words and diminishes the intrinsic motivation to read for far too many children.
By using MyWordz® tech, children can map ANY words, at ANY time—simply by incorporating a couple of weeks of work introducing the phonemes and the routines/techniques. Because the children are interested in these words and able to problem-solve with high levels of success, their AttentiA is heightened. This is a phrase used to describe a state of 'energy' I talk about in the book. Although many may believe that intelligence is the best predictor of academic achievement, this is simply not the case. Even the most intelligent child in the world will not thrive without curiosity, perseverance, engagement, grit, and an intrinsic desire to explore and learn!
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I also show reception teachers how they can cover all the content within synthetic phonics programmes in half the time, with every child working at their own pace. Even better, teachers are supervising, not standing at the front of the class! Again, this is all explained in the new book!
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When you explore words daily—ideally from birth, showing children mapped words aligned with the words they see around them—Speech Sound Mapping simply becomes an extension of their language development.
How being a skilled reader impacts the teacher's ability to map phonemes and graphemes for children who are learning to read and spell.
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When learning to read and spell, there is a stage where learners unconsciously map phonemes (speech sounds) to graphemes (letters or letter combinations). However, as skilled readers, most of this process occurs through implicit learning. If it weren't for the need to teach phonics, adults likely wouldn’t pay much attention to the speech sounds they use or their written representations.
Phonics is simply a term used to describe the mapping of phonemes to graphemes, but it has become associated with specific programmes that typically use only around 100 sound-letter correspondences.
While teachers may receive training and gain experience with this mapping, few continue to apply it to all words throughout the day. In my experience, many teachers are unaware of the phonemes they use in spoken words, even though they don't seem to have any issues with phonemic awareness. This is likely due to orthographic interference, where the association with graphemes becomes so strong that they cannot detach from it. For example, when looking at the word "hero," teachers may recognise the graphemes h/e/r/o but might not be aware that it contains four phonemes: /h/ /ɪə/ /r/ /əʊ/.
If the mandate in England is that phonics should be the primary method for teaching reading, one would expect teachers to have a deep understanding of phoneme-to-grapheme mapping, but in practice, they often don’t receive the necessary training and support to explore this, and feel confident word mapping throughout the day. Let's change that!