Welcome to Speedie Readies: Show the Code. A neuroinclusive pathway for communication, reading and spelling. Join the Three Learning Corners and access the orthographically mapped Village With Three Corners book series online.
Through playful sound awareness and musical activities, early print exploration, and language-rich environments, families and practitioners can help children move smoothly into the mapping of letters and sounds, and towards the self-teaching phase. By identifying and supporting those who are at risk we can prevent the dyslexia paradox before children even start school. Train as a Speedie Readies tutor and learn to do this in any EY setting.
Miss Emma MEd SEN
The Neurodivergent Reading Whisperer®
Spedie Readies: Preventing the Dyslexia Paradox from Ages 3 to 5
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Between the ages of three and five, children move from listening to language to exploring how speech connects to print. This period is crucial for developing phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and manipulate the smallest sounds in words, and for building the foundations that make later reading and spelling possible.
When early sound and language development are supported intentionally, children enter school ready to engage with word mapping. Those who are already struggling with blending or segmenting speech sounds can be identified and supported before phonics instruction begins, preventing the difficulties that often lead to the dyslexia paradox.
Our Speedie Readies approach focuses on helping children discover how speech maps to print in fun, engaging ways. Using stories, songs, rhythm, and rhyme, we help children notice patterns in sounds and begin linking them to letters. These experiences strengthen both listening and visual memory, preparing the brain for orthographic mapping, the process by which words become stored for automatic recognition.
We provide Sound Play Sessions for small groups of children aged three to five, alongside parent workshops that model simple, everyday ways to build speech–sound awareness at home. Early years practitioner training is also available to support the integration of sound-based play and early mapping into existing routines.
When children experience rich, playful exposure to speech sounds, print, and meaning before formal instruction begins, they approach reading with confidence and curiosity. Early, inclusive support during these years prevents difficulties learning to read and pelling failure before it starts and closes the gap that defines the dyslexia paradox.
Train as a Speedie Readies tutor. We also offer workshops for parents, in-house training for early-years practitioners, and one-to-one sessions for parents of babies aged six months and older at the Early Dyslexia Screening Centre.
The Sound Pic Sandwich is a split vowel digraph
The Naughty Speech Sound Frog puppet
The Starting Point for Children Age 3 +
When screening for dyslexia risk before children start learning phonics (please see the 10-day Speech Sound Play Plan for Reception), we introduce the concept of Speech Sound Monsters (Phonemies®). Each one says its own sound, just as a dog says woof. These are the speech sounds we use when speaking English.
We observe how easily children can follow the Monster Sounds to say the word (blending) and how well they can hear the sounds in order to place them on blank speech sound lines (isolating, segmenting, and blending). The latter is more challenging because there is no visual hook.
To teach children to read and spell, we need them to connect three key elements: the speech sounds, the spellings (letters that map to those sounds), and the meanings. From the beginning, we link speech sounds with meaning. If children struggle with this stage, they will find linking all three elements far more difficult later. We therefore ensure they feel confident with this first.
Some children are ready for the pictures of sounds (the graphemes) on day one, but our main focus is on the one in four who are not, and this has nothing to do with intelligence. It relates to phonemic awareness. We are screening for that one in four. Some children overcome these difficulties during the 10-day plan, but it is those who continue to struggle with just these six Speech Sound Monsters, and with building or blending words using the monster sounds, who need early support.
A very small percentage find it difficult to remember the associated sounds after week one, even though each monster has a distinct movement and always appears in the satpin line. When we move the monsters onto the lines, we keep the set visible above. By watching the two-minute video of all the monsters daily, children also begin to associate each with its own musical cue.
When we introduce the concept of pictures of speech sounds, it becomes a logical next step, even after a short introduction to speech-to-print word mapping without print. You can learn to do this too! Train as a Speedie Readies - Show the Code! - tutor.
