When you, as a skilled reader see a word, you can’t suppress what feels like a natural instinct to read it. STOP READING THIS. You can’t, right? (it is also so fascinating you want to find out more, #amiright?) The words just pop out at you. Even though the human brain wasn’t wired for reading, through proper instruction, it can become so skilled and fast at reading that reading can’t be suppressed. This is the product of a process called orthographic mapping. This process enables the brain to store tens of thousands of words in long-term memory. This storage of words enables reading fluency and reading comprehension. Once you can access words without effort, you can read fluently; every word becomes a “sight word”—a word recognized upon sight. For many years, we thought that to learn words you simply had to make an association between the verbal word and its visual form. Thousands of scientific studies have demonstrated this is not the case. Although we look at print with our eyes, reading actually starts with our ears; with the internal sound structure of oral language.

The premise of orthographic mapping is based on a process that works like : we use the pronunciation of words that are already stored in long-term memory as the “glue”  for the spelling sequences used to represent those pronunciations. This might sound more complicated than it is. But remember, reading starts with oral language; it starts with the ears! Our brains are wired for language. Children already have many words and their pronounciations stored in their brain when they start reading instruction. The key is to leverage oral language to enable the orthographic mapping process to occur through explicit instruction.

There are three key prerequisite skills a student must have in order to build a sight word vocabulary through orthographic mapping. Remember, sight words are any words that are recognized instantly without any effort or analysis. Bonus: no flashcards or memorization are involved!

Required skills:

1. Advanced phonemic awareness
2. Letter-sound knowledge
3. Phonological long-term memory (storage of the correct pronunciation of words in the brain)

All of this means that a student must be aware of the different sounds (phonemes) in words and be able to recognize letters and their associated sounds. A student with phonemic awareness can tell you that the word “cat” has three sounds, that the first sound is /c/, the middle sound is /a/ and the last sound is /t/. A child that is “phonemically proficient” can manipulate the sounds within words. So, if you say to a child:

say the word “bat”

Now say it again, but this time, take away the sound /a/ and replace it with the sound /i/,

the child will be able to tell you the new word, “bit.”

A child who struggles with phonemic awareness will struggle with this type of task and will require explicit and repeated practice with this skill in order to become a fluent reader.

Orthographic mapping enables the brain to make every word into a sight word so that the brain can automatically recognize words without any decoding or analysis required.

Here is a quick look at how this process works from a teaching perspective:

1. Introduce a word orally, example: “bench”
2. Segment the word into phonemes verbally. Count the sounds. Here there are 4 sounds /b/, /e/, /n/ /ch/
3. Emphasize each phoneme and make sure the student can isolate and count each sound individually
4. Ask the student for the letters associated with the phonemes. “What letter spells the sound /b/?” What letters spell the sound /ch/?”
5. Show the word and guide the student through the work of pairing letters to the sounds you have segmented.

It is the sounds of oral language that provide the gateway for reading; it is not visual memory, which is why trying to have a child memorize words isn’t an effective strategy.

What about so-called irregular words? I’ll cover those next week. Spoiler alert—you teach them using the same strategy with a little tweak.

So, what is the difference between decoding (sounding out a word) and orthographic mapping?

Decoding is used to identify a word using letter-sound skills. Orthographic mapping uses sound-letter skills to create a memory of printed words.

Orthographic mapping does not involve identifying unfamiliar words; it involves a connection-forming process that turns unfamiliar printed words into familiar printed words. These are different processes; both essential to reading .

A student can be good at sounding out words because he/she received good phonics instruction, but if the student has limited phonemic skills— limited ability to pull sounds apart— then he/she is not going to be able to recognize words automatically.

Phonemic proficiency drives the process of being able to store words in long-term memory.

Only when our children have mastered decoding and orthographic mapping will they be fluent readers.