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There is a reading crisis in America, with students across all grade levels struggling with and missing basic skills needed for education and life. Literacy is the foundation of all learning, and without it, students cannot succeed.

During the edLeader Panel “Beyond Memorization: Orthographic Mapping for Dyslexic, Multilingual, and Striving Readers,” Joan Macenat Charles, Regional Partner at Really Great Reading and a former teacher, spoke with Kathryn Grace, Literacy Advocate and creator of the Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping methodology, and Dr. Alecia Blackwood, Assistant Professor of Education at Longwood University, about how moving from rote memorization to orthographic mapping can help students become proficient readers.

Orthographic Mapping

Orthographic mapping is an automatic process where the mind quickly analyzes phonemes and matches them to graphemes, letting students decode words quickly. It cannot be taught, but its prerequisite skills and knowledge can. Students are taught to break down words into single syllables and letters, sound them out, and understand phonemes and graphemes.

Why Rote Memorization Does Not Work

Rote memorization doesn’t work in literacy because letters can make multiple sounds and sounds can consist of multiple letters. Unless teachers explain this, students will continue to struggle with reading. If teachers don’t teach foundational knowledge, such as the alphabetic principle, it results in students struggling with spelling. This, in turn, affects students’ overall school success, since reading and spelling are necessary in every subject.

Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping

Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping lets students see how letters become sounds, allowing them to decode words, and facilitates orthographic mapping, which frees students’ mental space for other important tasks. The English language is a code that must be explicitly taught for students to understand how letters relate to words.

Having students simply guess at words does not build important foundational knowledge. By building foundational knowledge and using Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping, students learn to connect phonemes and graphemes, and their brains begin to automatically retrieve that learned information when reading.

Shifting from rote memorization to Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping has been shown to boost test scores in all students, including multilingual learners and students with learning disabilities. As students’ brains begin orthographic mapping, they’re unlocking the code brains were designed to use.

There are some misconceptions in approaches that don’t meet students’ needs. For example, as mentioned earlier, rote memorization. Also, rather than looking at all syllable types, it’s better to study the most common types, such as closed syllables, which make up 53% of all English syllables.

Moving from traditional spelling rules to clear sound-symbol patterns makes reading and spelling more accessible. Most syllable and grapheme patterns can be reached through sound first, such as long vowels. There are seven to eight ways to spell a single long vowel, but only some are used frequently, so it’s better to teach those first. Focusing on what students use most often means more mental energy is freed up for frequent patterns in English, which makes reading in other subjects easier.

When moving away from traditional spelling rules to patterns, it’s crucial to look at the schwa—the most common phoneme in English. It’s a part of many words, with most multi-syllable words containing at least one, and not learning it denies students access to words across multiple subjects. A large percentage of middle and high school students struggle with it, though.

There is prerequisite knowledge that can be leveraged for teaching the schwa. By the time students learn about it, they’ve already learned about short vowel sounds, which can be used to identify the schwa in words. Rather than having students memorize the schwa, they receive explicit instruction to use their pattern recognition skills to identify it.

Students become independent learners and readers with the right tools. Rather than having them memorize rules, educators show them how to recognize patterns that allow their minds to automatically decode and map words, letting them understand words in multiple fields. When educators build the foundation students need to become stronger readers, they’re also building the foundation needed for overall student success.

Learn more about this edWeb broadcast, Beyond Memorization: Orthographic Mapping for Dyslexic, Multilingual, and Striving Readers, sponsored by Really Great Reading.

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Article by Jon Scanlon, based on this edLeader Panel