The Word Mapping Formula
Learn the Mathematical Formula for Mapping Words Bidirectionally
Emma Hartnell-Baker, Word Mapping Nerd! Connect on LinkedIn
Emma Hartnell-Baker (Miss Emma) is a self-professed Word Mapping Nerd. On this page, she shares the mathematics of word mapping using a jurisdictional standard and shows how this can form the basis of bidirectional word mapping to support reading and spelling, while still accounting for accents. Her word mapping training, which includes learning the Word Mapping Formula, also helps adults who teach phonics and spelling.
We’ve been awarded close to a quarter of a million pounds to do something I’m so passionate about, but I still can’t talk about it!?!!
And yes, I had a little AI help, as Sam would never try to shut me up, lol.
Update: We can talk about it now! :-) See UpstreamSEND.com
Could you join us as an assessor?
What is the error here, and why did she make it?
Purpose of the DfE GPC teaching sequence
This is the order the Department for Education (DfE) suggests to be taught explicitly, to kick-start children's independent self-teaching. The DfE's example progression covers only part of the alphabetic code children need to navigate when reading and spelling English words.
Mapping every word of English
Emma Hartnell-Baker, The Word Mapping Nerd, has calculated how every word of English is mapped, identifying grapheme boundaries and assigning British English phoneme values in line with the DfE's expectations for reading and spelling.
She developed Ortho-GraphiX®, a rule-based, bidirectional word-mapping algorithm that determines how written words map to spoken phonemes and how spoken phonemes align with graphemes.
This technology makes the alphabetic code visible in individual words at the point of need, supporting independent reading, spelling and self-teaching.
The aim: less explicit instruction, more self-teaching.
The Phonics Screening Check
The Phonics Screening Check tests whether children can apply a limited set of taught grapheme–phoneme correspondences, not whether they understand the English alphabetic code.
The DfE says /sÊŒt/ or /sÊŠt/ are acceptable pronunicatins for sut. But sut isn't a real word, so it has no established pronunciation.
When skilled readers explore the phonemes that ‹s›, ‹u› and ‹t› can represent in English, they can identify 120 theoretical combinations.
A child who knows more of the alphabetic code could give a pronunciation the PSC doesn't accept. Performing well on a constrained phonics assessment isn't the same as understanding English orthography or being able to map unfamiliar words independently.
And it raises a further question: Why are we treating performance on this limited task as evidence of the knowledge children need to become independent readers and spellers?
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Having alphabet charts provides a visual reference for the various phoneme–grapheme correspondences. Don't mistake this for explicit phonics instruction. We're exploring the alphabetic code as a proactive way to boost self-teaching, which is more effective when children WANT to explore words.
It also helps adults ask different questions!
For example, when you ask, ‘Which sound?’ for a grapheme, even the children will start asking, ‘In which word?’
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Does anyone else wonder whether showing graphemes in isolation on cards might be doing more harm to adults' understanding of word mapping than we realise? When teachers repeatedly see combinations such as ‹ng› presented as single graphemes, they may begin to recognise those letter combinations automatically, even in words where the letters do not form that grapheme. For example, in kangaroo, the ‹n› and ‹g› represent separate phonemes, /Å‹/ and /g/, rather than ‹ng› representing /Å‹/. Could this prevent adults from identifying the actual grapheme boundaries and corresponding phonemes? It may go unnoticed when teachers are following a programme, but it becomes particularly problematic when they're expected to support struggling readers and spellers with unfamiliar correspondences. We need to consider whether teaching isolated graphemes is leaving adults 'blinded by the letters', as I call it. In research, the influence of written letters on how we perceive and process speech sounds is known as orthographic interference.
Saying a phoneme while looking at an isolated grapheme? They need to see graphemes in words. Then, when ‹s› doesn’t map to /s/ and ‹a› doesn’t map to /æ/, it’s not a shock to the children, as they understand that we only know the sound value of a grapheme when it’s in a word.
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