SoundMap & WordMap Scans
SoundMap Scan and WordMap Scan are screeners designed to identify the core reasons why a child is struggling to master word mapping and to learn phonics, read, and spell. Book a consultation with Miss Emma or refer to the chapter in the Word Mapping Mastery Book and use the tech! These are included within MAPS Screening
MAPS - Memory, Awareness, Processing, and Speech - SCREENING
Immunising Children Against Illiteracy
Screening toddlers to identify the 1 in 4 at risk of developing reading and spelling difficulties and being labelled with dyslexia is such a worthy cause. By 2027, we aim to have the technological capacity to screen, store, and analyse data for 1.5 million 3- and 4-year-olds in England each year. We ‘screen and intervene’ before they even realise they were heading towards a school life no child deserves. We ensure they won’t struggle to read and spell, allowing them to focus on their strengths—while increasing the odds of them reading for pleasure early on. With the adoption of MAPS Screening worldwide, we offer a clear path to eradicating illiteracy globally.
Help us in our quest to prevent reading and spelling difficulties by implementing Letters and Sounds Phase 1 - Phonemic Awareness Mastery with Phonemies!
A dedicated week of phonemic awareness training before introducing graphemes offers several key benefits:
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Enhanced Auditory Discrimination:
Students learn to hear and distinguish individual sounds within words, laying a clear groundwork for later connecting these sounds to specific letters. -
Stronger Decoding Skills:
By practicing segmenting and blending sounds, learners build the essential skills needed to decode words quickly and accurately once graphemes are introduced. -
Improved Spelling Readiness:
Mastery of phonemes helps students understand how sounds combine to form words, making it easier to match those sounds to the correct letters when spelling. -
Smooth Transition to Orthographic Mapping:
With a solid phonemic foundation, learners are better prepared to engage in the mapping of phonemes to graphemes, which supports automatic word recognition. -
Increased Confidence and Engagement:
Spending focused time on phonemic awareness boosts confidence, ensuring that when graphemes are introduced, students are less overwhelmed and more receptive to the new challenge.
In short, this week of training equips students with the auditory and cognitive skills necessary to build a robust, lifelong foundation in reading and writing.
By exploring phonemic awareness with Phonemies we are also pro-actively including non-speaking children, who can now type WHATEVER THEY WANT TO SAY using Phonemies to generate words (even if they can't read them) and have them voiced aloud.
But they will also encourage children to explore how sounds and letters connect, so they can see the spelling of any word they choose throughout the day, outside of their phonics sessions and current phonics knowledge.
They offer "Instant Word Mapping – See the Spellings, Hear the Sounds, Anytime."
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Key benefits:
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Instant visualisation of all GPCs, including those not explicitly taught.
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Supports spelling and reading independent of phonics sequences.
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Works with any accent—no confusion when spelling.
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Miss Emma is passionate about prevention! She is seeking funding to develop a tech-based dyslexia screener for children under 3—before they even begin learning about letters and sounds.
Interested in getting involved?
Do you have a subscription to the ICRWY Lessons app?
Start with Phase 1, and help you support your child or students as they transition into exploring Speech Sound Pics (SSP)!
SoundMap Scans
Assessing phonemic awareness is critical for ensuring that children develop the foundational skills required for both reading and spelling. Phonemic awareness—the ability to identify, isolate, and manipulate individual speech sounds (phonemes) in words—is the biggest predictor of future reading success. Early assessment allows educators to identify children who may struggle with these skills, including those with dyslexia or other learning differences, and to provide targeted interventions before learning gaps widen. Without assessment, these difficulties often remain hidden until formal reading instruction begins, making remediation more challenging. Phonemic awareness assessments help tailor instruction to individual needs, ensuring that all children build the necessary phonological foundation to progress confidently into encoding (writing) and decoding (reading), leading to word recognition and fluent literacy development.
The DfE advised developers of synthetic phonics programmes, as part of the validation process, to remove Phase 1 activities and begin introducing graphemes from day one. However, this approach may not serve all children effectively. Approximately one in four children—or more—enter school without the necessary phonemic awareness to understand word mapping (the connection between sounds and letters). This can be masked when graphemes are introduced too soon, adding unnecessary cognitive load. For children who already have strong phonemic awareness, starting with graphemes poses no issue, but it is crucial for teachers to identify those lacking these foundational skills as early as possible.
In the Speech Sound Pics (SSP) Approach, graphemes are introduced only at the end of week one, while phonemic awareness is assessed from day one through 'Phase 1' activities such as isolating, blending, and segmenting speech sounds. Phonemes are represented visually and physically using "Phonemies," manipulable characters that children use to build words on their whiteboards while simultaneously learning letter formation in preparation for writing. These strategies—along with the Speech Sound Pics Approach, which is used to teach phonics systematically in a classroom setting—are further explained in the Word Mapping Mastery book, equipping educators with practical tools to address individual learner needs effectively.
SoundMap Scans are included in the book, enabling parents and teachers to conduct screenings at home. These scans help prevent learning difficulties and provide insights into why a child may struggle to learn with phonics at school, offering a proactive approach to supporting every learner.
WordMap Scans
It is crucial to check whether children can map words by identifying the graphemes because this skill is at the core of learning to read and spell effectively. Grapheme recognition allows children to connect written symbols with their corresponding speech sounds (phonemes), enabling them to decode unfamiliar words and build a robust mental lexicon. Without the ability to map words accurately, children will struggle to develop decoding fluency and therefore, comprehension, and overall literacy development. Assessing this skill early helps identify gaps in knowledge, particularly for children who may find it difficult to isolate or blend sounds and who may be at risk of developing dyslexia. By pinpointing these challenges, educators can provide targeted support, ensuring that all children develop the phoneme-grapheme mapping skills necessary for confident, independent reading and spelling, and to defy dyslexia!
WordMap Scans are also included in the Word Mapping Mastery book, enabling parents and teachers to conduct screenings at home to check 'code knowledge'. These are also useful for adults! As outlined in the book, word mapping can be challenging for us—after all, as skilled readers, we never have to think about it! This can result in something called 'orthographic interference.'
This activity is designed to assess multiple cognitive and linguistic skills simultaneously.
As words flash up on the screen, the child decodes them quickly, retains them in memory, and then processes the full instruction to complete the task. They don’t need to say the words aloud—just understand and respond.
We’re addressing:
✅ Decoding Fluency – Rapid word recognition and processing.
✅ Working Memory – Holding the full instruction in mind while analysing it.
✅ Vocabulary Knowledge – Understanding the meaning of individual words.
✅ Reading Comprehension – Understanding and following written instructions.
✅ Processing Speed – How quickly they can read, process, and act.
✅ Syntax Awareness – Understanding how words relate to each other in the instruction.
✅ Attention & Focus – Sustaining attention and resisting distractions.
✅ Executive Functioning – Planning and executing a multi-step response.
✅ Cognitive Load Management – Managing the demand of decoding, memory, and action.
✅ Receptive Language Processing – For non-speaking children, demonstrating comprehension without verbalising.
✅ Inference Skills – Applying knowledge to interpret the instruction correctly.
✅ Motor Planning & Coordination – Physically executing the required action.
✅ Semantic Processing – Making sense of the instruction beyond just recognising the words.
This activity provides valuable insight into a child's ability to process and respond to written language, even if they are non-speaking. If they hesitate, misinterpret, or struggle with execution, we gain clues about what aspect of the task may be challenging—whether it’s decoding, memory, comprehension, or processing speed.
For added challenge, we can introduce conditional instructions (e.g., “If you see something blue, clap twice”) to further assess reasoning and flexibility.
As created in power point you can adjust the speed, font etc. You can do this with mapped words too.
You can check the orthographic knowledge of your children by mapping words, to show the graphemes , but only one word is correctly mapped! Ask children to justify their answer.
The Monster Spelling Piano App: Boost Speech Sound and Word Mapping of Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences (GPCs) tested within the Year One Phonics Screening Check
The Monster Spelling Piano app is designed to strengthen children's ability to connect graphemes with their corresponding phonemes, a foundational skill assessed in the Year One Phonics Screening Check. This interactive, engaging tool helps young learners practice and master the grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) necessary for decoding and word recognition. By combining speech sound awareness with visual and kinaesthetic learning, the app supports children in building the essential word mapping skills required for fluent reading and spelling. Perfect for home and school use, it turns phonics practice into a fun and rewarding experience.
