Orthographic mapping sounds like complex educational jargon, so I’m sure you are wondering why you need to know about it. Once we explain it in simple language, you will understand what orthographic mapping is and why it is important for learning to read. 

When you understand orthographic mapping, you will be able to help your child learn to read quickly and efficiently. No more wasting time using strategies that slow down the process or don’t actually work.  

There has been a renewed movement in schools towards using systematic and explicit phonics instruction. So, it’s helpful for parents to know and understand words, such as orthographic mapping or phonemic awareness, that a teacher might use when talking about phonics.

We’ll break it all down here to make it easy for you to understand how your child uses orthographic mapping to read and write. Once you know how words are mapped into long term memory, it will make sense why phonics is so important for learning to read.

What is Orthographic Mapping?

Written language is an invented code that uses letter shapes to represent the sounds we hear in spoken language. Orthographic mapping is the process our brain uses to store words in memory by connecting how a word is spelled, how it sounds, and what it means. It’s how we build a dictionary in our brains of 20-50,000 or more words.

Orthographic mapping allows us to instantly recognize a word, so we don’t have to sound it out every time we read it. This makes reading effortless and frees up our brain to think about the meaning of what we are reading. 

How do Children Learn to Read?

The English alphabet uses 26 letters to represent approximately 44 sounds. We learn to talk by being around people who talk. It comes naturally to us, but learning to read doesn’t come naturally, because it uses invented code that has to be learned.

To learn to read, children need to know letter shapes and sounds, and how to blend and segment sounds. These skills help them decode and encode words. 

More education jargon, but to put it simply, decoding means breaking written words into known sounds. For example: sat is pulled apart into the sounds /s/ /ă/ /t/. It’s the process of sounding-out words. 

Encoding means using sounds to spell and write words. It’s the process of putting the code into a readable format. For example: /s/ /ă/ /t/ blend into the word sat.

Learning to read sounds complex, and it is, but by taking it one step at a time, very young children can learn phonemes and begin reading decodable books.

Alphabites Game Pack introduces your child to letter shapes and sounds through playful games and bite size learning that keeps them engaged. The games will help them learn sounds in an order that will quickly have them reading (decoding) and writing (encoding) simple words. 

We suggest you begin with /s/ /m/ /t/ /ǎ/ /p/ /ǐ/ /n/. Knowing these letter sounds, your child will be able to read: am an at in it sat mat pat man pan tan map nap sap tap pin tin pit sit tip sip nip ant Nan Sam Pam. Add a few more letter sounds and more words quickly become decodable. 

Why Does Orthographic Mapping Matter?

When we read, we use our knowledge of sounds (phonemes) and the letters (graphemes) that represent those sounds to decode words. With practice, word patterns are stored in memory. Once a word is mapped in the brain, it can be recognized instantaneously without needing to break it down into individual sounds or letters.

For example, once you’ve sounded out the word bat a few times, you can quickly recognize it as a whole, without thinking about blending the /b/ /a/ /t/ sounds. Orthographic mapping helps us read fluently, which frees up the mind for thinking about the meaning of what is being read.

Once words are orthographically mapped into long term memory, using letter-sound connections to link spelling, pronunciation, and meaning, those words become sight words. Orthographic mapping builds a dictionary of words, in long term memory, that can be instantly and effortlessly recalled. This process frees the reader to think about the meaning of what is being read. 

Summary

Written language is an invented code that has to be learned. The three most important skills for learning to read are: 

1. Sound-Letter correspondences 
2. Blending sounds into words
3. Segmenting words into sounds

As your child develops these skills, they begin to orthographically map words into long term memory by linking each word based on: 

1. Spelling
2. Pronunciation
3. Meaning

When words are mapped, they become sight words that can be instantly and effortlessly recalled. This frees up the mind for the reason to read, which is getting meaning from print.

To learn more about how children learn so many words so quickly, you’ll want to read our post about Share’s Self Teaching Hypothesis - coming soon. 

Sources

Cunningham, A. E., Nathan, R. G., Schmidt Raher, K. (2010). Orthographic processing in models of word recognition. In M. L. Kamil, P. D. Pearson, E. Birr Moje, P. P. Afflerbach (Eds.). Handbook of reading research: Volume IV (pp. 259-285). New York: Routledge. Google Scholar

Ehri, L. C. (2017). Orthographic mapping and literacy development revisited. In Theories of reading development (pp. 127-146). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar