Orthographic Mapping and Why it Matters
I think that we can all agree that the goal of reading is comprehension. We want our students to be able to read and understand what they are reading. We want them to be able to read for pleasure and enjoy it, right? So how do we get there? How do we support our students along their journey? First, we must understand what is needed to become a skilled reader.
SiMple View of reading
Have you ever heard of the simple view of reading? The simple view of reading is a notion that was proposed by researchers Gough and Tunmer in 1986 and has since been researched in over 100 studies.
The simple view of reading is the notion that reading has two basic components. Those components are word recognition and language comprehension. What this means is that there are research studies out there that say a students comprehension ability is directly linked to their decoding skills. We can predict how well a student will do on a comprehension assessment if we know both their language comprehension and decoding ability.
Today friends, we are going to talk about automatic word recognition. We will be breaking down what it is, why it is important, and some ways to teach it!
Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert. I am however a practitioner and I love learning and researching all things reading. In this workshop, I am simply trying to summarize and break it down in a way to help others!
What is Word Recognition?
Word recognition is the ability to recognize words and spelling patterns quickly. It is the ability to see a written word, and link it to the spoken word and its meaning. This develops over time from repeated exposure. It is built on the sound system of our language.
Fun Fact- When you are a skilled reader, and you have stored a word in your long term memory, you cannot look at it in the printed form and NOT read it.
So how is it that we can do that so quickly? Have we learned them by sight? The answer is not so simple.
First, I think it is important to define what a sight word actually is.
A sight word is a word that is recognized instantly and effortlessly, by sight whether it is spelled regularly or not. Sight word vocabulary is NOT based on visual memory. (Dr. David Kilpatrick)
Common Misconceptions
Now that we understand what sight words are, let’s take a look at some common misconceptions.
The brain memorizes whole words as an object.
For years, teachers have been teaching sight words through rote memorization. We now know that the brain does not learn to read that way. If this were true, we would then have to remember words in both upper and lowercase print as well as in different fonts.
Sight words follow no real rule and cannot be sounded out.
It is assumed that these words follow no rule and therefore cannot be learned using sound symbol relationships. This is also not true. While some words are irregular, most are somewhat decodable. In fact, 50 percent of all English words can be spelled using sound/symbol relationships alone and 36 percent can be spelled accurately. That means that 86% of our language can be decoded in some way.
Process to Success
Now that we have the background information, let’s look at the process our students go through to become automatic word readers!
Learning to read begins with sound. It is the foundation for phonics. When a student develops phonemic awareness and can apply it to the alphabetic principle to decode, they begin to read. The more they decode, the more they read, and the more they begin to recognize patterns, and chunks in words.
This mental process is known as orthographic mapping. We use this process to permanently store words in our long term memory.
What’s the difference between decoding and orthographic mapping?
Decoding is a strategy we use to learn how to read. When a student decodes, they look at the printed form of a word, and use their knowledge of letters and blending to identify it.
Orthographic mapping however is the process that we use to permanently store those words into our long term memory.
David Kilpatrick says in his book “Essentials for Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties,” “Think of phonic decoding as going from text to brain (part to whole, phonemes to words) and orthographic mapping going from brain to text (whole to part, oral words to the individual phonemes that make the word.)”
What I believe this means is that once our students have decoded a word enough times and had enough exposure, it becomes stored in their brains for automatic retrieval
It is important to note that orthographic mapping is not a skill. You cannot teach orthographic mapping. There is no activity or technique that can be used with students. What we can do however, is support them in ways that will enable orthographic mapping.
From the time our students are very young, most are speaking and listening to the world around them. They are building their oral vocabulary. Through that oral vocabulary, they are attaching meaning to those words. If a child knows the spoken word cat, and that pronunciation is stored in their long term memory AND if the child has some phonemic awareness skills, they can begin to segment and blend that word. Once they are able to segment and blend it, they can begin applying it to print. Once these two pieces are in place, the student can begin working on storing the printed version of the word into their long term memory.
Let’s Talk about some ways that we can support our students and help to enable automatic word recognition (orthographic mapping).
Phoneme Grapheme Mapping
Phoneme-grapheme mapping is a research based activity that will help our students build decoding skills and increase fluency (automatic word recognition)
Before I explain the activity, let’s take a look at the vocabulary we need to understand it!
Phoneme- (sound) The smallest unit of sound in speech. When I think of the word phoneme, I remember the word phone. That helps me remember that it is sound only.
Grapheme- a letter or group of letters that represent a single phoneme. When I think of the word grapheme, I remember the word graph. That helps me remember writing.
Below, you will find a video of phoneme-grapheme mapping.
Heart Words
Heart words are all the rave right now. What are heart words? Heart words are words that are high in frequency. Meaning they show up a lot in the texts that our students read. These words can be regular or irregular. These regular spelled words are called flash words. These are words that can be completely decoded. Irregular words however are a little tricky. That’s where the HEART comes into play. The idea is that what we consider to be “high frequency words” Should be integrated into our phonics lessons. Remember from above that about 86% of our words can be decoded in some form. When we teach sight words as heart words, students use their phoneme knowledge to map the regular part of the words, then only have to “learn by heart” the sounds that are irregular in the word, thus the name Heart Words. This can be a little tricky to wrap your brain around. So, I am demonstrating it in the video below!
Explicit and Systematic Phonics Instruction
Another way to support orthographic mapping (automatic word recognition) is through explicit and systematic phonics. I have several posts on this topic and I will link them below.
Why is Phonological Awareness So Important?
Making the Most of Phonemic Awareness
I hope that this post helped clear up some lingering questions you may have had about orthographic mapping and has provided you with some tips and tricks to help support your students. As I said earlier, I am no expert, but I love to learn and grow. Here are some of my favorite books on the topic. These books helped support my understanding of the post I created for you today!
Below are some great resources that will further support you:
Bridge the Gap: Phonemic Awareness and Intervention Lessons
Equipped for Reading Success (Kilpatrick)
Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties (Kilpatrick)
