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.
Upstream dyslexia risk screening and phonemic awareness sit at the foundation of the Speech Sound Play approach, available as a separate early learning pathway. This work builds phonological working memory and prepares children for accurate speech-to-print and print-to-speech word mapping. It is the first step of the learning journey.
Speedie Readies then supports children to understand how spoken words are represented in spelling, so words can be stored securely in memory. When children can map between speech sounds, spelling, and meaning in both directions, reading and spelling develop together without guessing or memorisation. Learn how to support children to understand how English spelling works, so reading and spelling both become easier.
Support Corner
A secure messaging area is being built so that you can ask questions relating to your child or students
Map and Drag is part of the MyWordz® tech.
Map and Drag allows you to type one or two word and see them mapped to show which letters go togetther as graphemes, and then drag down the Speech Sound Monsters® to map the sounds to those graphemes. You can check the mapping using Check Mapping first if using MyWordz® technology. But here, as a Speedie Readies member, you can change the Phonemies if you say the word differently! Join the Speaking Corner to access to all Reading Corner and Spelling Corner Pages, as well as resources in the Speaking Corner designed specifically to help parents support their non-speaking child in using the tech on a phone or tablet to give them a voice anywhere, all from one Phonemies® screen.
​
We support you with a teamwork approach. We'll stop you going round in circles, and get you back on track!
The Monster Spelling Routine bonds speech sounds, spelling and meaning in the orthographic lexicon.
You will need the Monster Spelling Piano® app to get the hang of the Speech Sound Monsters, speech to print spelling, make sure you know the core code (100 or so GPCs) and to use the Phonemies screen.
You also need the MyWordz® technology to download Monster Mapped words to print. However you can access Map and Drag here as a member to drag them down and use a screen grab.
There is a yearly membership option for MyWordz® technology or you can pay a one-time fee.
Activities in this corner show children how to spell words in the way that 'naturally' great spellers do this. It's not by memorising spelling lists, or understanding 'rules'.
Learners map speech sounds (phonemes) to Speech Sound Pics (graphemes) for every word
For skilled reading and spelling, learners must be able to recognise words automatically and detect when a word’s written form appears incorrect. This metalinguistic awareness enables self-correction during spelling and supports the consolidation of accurate orthographic representations.
Through repeated, successful encounters with print, words are stored in the brain’s orthographic lexicon, often referred to as the mental word bank.
This process is consistent with the self-teaching hypothesis (Share, 1995) and orthographic mapping theory (Ehri, 2005), which describe how phonological, orthographic, and semantic connections are integrated to support fluent word recognition.
What we have done, is make the speech sounds and spelling VISIBLE with Phonemies.
The letters that represent the grapheme in that word AND the phonemes are shown.
This means that children can see that although only 1 letter was added here, it changed the sound value for the <ow> grapheme, and the w became part of a new <sw> grapheme, with a different sound.
The brain that easily maps word is constantly switching around the letters and sounds in words, to link with the spoken word (which can change because of the context!) This is something most brains can achieve very easily, as long as certain things are in place, but SEEING the Universal Code helps every child.
When we Show the Code we make an opaque orthography easier to understand. So if you aren't sure 'Check the Tech'!
What do you do when a child needs to spell the word cupboard? How many sounds?
Word mapping refers to the cognitive process through which learners connect spoken language to written language by linking phonemes, the smallest units of speech sound, to graphemes, the written representations used to encode those sounds. Within contemporary reading science, and particularly within the Science of Reading, there is broad agreement about how skilled reading operates. Research has established that fluent reading relies on orthographic mapping, a process through which words are stored in long-term memory by bonding speech sounds, spellings, and meaning (Ehri, 2005; Perfetti, 2007; Share, 1995).
​
What is far less settled is how best to teach this process to learners who are at risk of reading failure, particularly those with weak phonemic awareness, speech and language differences, or dyslexia. While the Science of Reading has clarified the cognitive mechanisms involved in reading, it has not resolved how instruction should be structured for children who do not intuitively segment speech into phonemes or who struggle to apply taught correspondences beyond tightly controlled programme content (Castles et al., 2018; Moats, 2005).
​
In many phonics programmes, word mapping is simplified to a procedural activity aligned with a prescribed scope and sequence. Learners are encouraged to assign letters to sounds as they are introduced, often with the implicit assumption that phoneme identification is straightforward and shared by all learners. This assumption does not hold for children with poor phonemic awareness, for whom phonemes are not readily accessible units of analysis (Liberman et al., 1974; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005). As a result, these learners are often left with unresolved ambiguity about how spoken words relate to written forms.
​
A central problem is that instructional discussions frequently prioritise technical debates about what constitutes a legitimate grapheme over the learner’s need for a complete and coherent mapping strategy.
For example, in the word cupboard, typically spoken as /kʌbəd/, instructional materials often avoid explicit mapping altogether, or attempt to explain linguistic detail in ways that overload working memory. The outcome is frequently that children memorise the word. That's a highly inefficient strategy for a child who does not have good PA as they can't recode it.
Some well-meaning but misguided practitioners may then debate whether letter groupings such as pd qualify as graphemes. From an instructional perspective, this debate misses the point. For the learner, particularly those at risk, what matters is that every phoneme they can hear is accounted for in the spelling, and that no part of the word is left unmapped. What matters is extending the core principle taught in phonics, that phonemes map to graphemes, and that no letters are treated as left over or 'silent'.
Research on orthographic mapping indicates that words are stored efficiently only when learners can form a complete bond between phonology, orthography, and semantics (Ehri, 2014; Perfetti, 2007). Leaving letters or sounds unexplained, or labelling parts of words as irregular or exceptional, increases cognitive load and fosters confusion. In contrast, a simple and consistent strategy in which learners assign letters or letter groups to phonemes, ensuring that nothing is left unmapped, supports clarity and independence. This allows learners to focus on mapping speech sounds to spellings and attaching meaning, rather than trying to reconcile inconsistencies across instructional explanations.
Importantly, this does not require resolving theoretical disputes about grapheme status at the point of instruction. Whether a particular letter sequence meets a formal linguistic definition of a grapheme is less relevant to the learner than whether the mapping strategy enables them to read and spell unfamiliar words independently. When children understand that written words are representations of spoken words, and that every spoken element has a corresponding written representation, they are better able to generalise this knowledge beyond taught examples (Share, 1995; Venezky, 1999).
From this perspective, word mapping should be understood not as a narrow phonics routine, but as an instructional commitment to making the full structure of words transparent. The Science of Reading has clarified how reading works, but effective teaching for at-risk learners requires strategies that reduce ambiguity, prioritise complete mappings, and support learners in forming robust connections between speech sounds, spellings, and meaning.
The International Phonetic Alphabet shows the phonetic symbols used to represent the sounds in words. These may not be the exact sounds used in every accent, but phonics relies on this system. Its purpose is to provide a shared reference for speech sounds so that pronunciation can be discussed consistently across contexts.
The 100 or so grapheme–phoneme correspondences that are explicitly taught are intended to kick-start the self-teaching process, because far more correspondences are encountered in the words children need to read and write, even in the early years. Children therefore need to begin storing words in long-term memory. At least 1 in 4 children need additional guidance to access statistical learning, as most reading and spelling are acquired through inquiry learning, when children are working things out independently.
How would a child spell the word cupboard? How many sounds can they hear? There are five phonemes, even allowing for accent variation. To support accurate spelling, the speech sounds must be made visible, the spellings that represent those sounds must be shown, and the meaning of the word must be discussed. These three elements, speech, spelling, and meaning, bond in the orthographic lexicon when a child has sufficiently developed phonemic awareness. That is why we are so OTT about phonemic awareness.
This is also why we use the Speech Sound Play plan before introducing phonics, and then Speedie Readies as a dual-route learning path. The Speech Sound Pics approach can be used in whole-class settings to ensure children experience the kick-start efficiently as they work through the core code of around 100 GPCs at their own pace. This system can also be used alongside any whole-class phonics programme.
However, we must focus on upstream screening of the 1 in 4 children who will not begin self-teaching through synthetic phonics alone. While SSP reduces this risk, not all teachers understand its organisation or are supported by school leadership. Many school leaders do not fully understand the science and are influenced by pressures that make effective implementation difficult. As a result, parents and tutors can use Speedie Readies either to protect children from becoming instructional casualties, or to address the effects when they already have been.
It is time that parents had access to a system that works for their unique child. Personalised learning is my strength, and I share as much of what I do as possible. Word Mapping Mastery matters. If children are not storing words in the orthographic lexicon, reading with fluency and comprehension becomes unnecessarily difficult. Children do not want to keep memorising words. It is exhausting.
Our technology enables learners to check any word and see how it is spelled by typing in phonemes, using Phonemies.
Join us and help your child read and spell any word, and store those words in the orthographic lexicon, their brain’s word bank, for easier retrieval when spelling and more efficient decoding when reading.
Emma Hartnell-Baker
References
Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100618772271
Ehri, L. C. (2005). Learning to read words: Theory, findings, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9(2), 167–188. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532799xssr0902_4
Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.819356
Liberman, I. Y., Shankweiler, D., Fischer, F. W., & Carter, B. (1974). Explicit syllable and phoneme segmentation in the young child. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 18(2), 201–212.
Moats, L. C. (2005). How spelling supports reading. American Educator, 29(1), 12–43.
Perfetti, C. A. (2007). Reading ability: Lexical quality to comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11(4), 357–383. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888430701530730
Share, D. L. (1995). Phonological recoding and self-teaching: Sine qua non of reading acquisition. Cognition, 55(2), 151–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(94)00645-2
Venezky, R. L. (1999). The American way of spelling. Guilford Press.
Ziegler, J. C., & Goswami, U. (2005). Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages. Psychological Bulletin, 131(1), 3–29. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.3
Word Mapping Mastery
