Word Mapping Mastery❌ It's a no-go: there is no /oe/ in goes!

I was sent this by someone recently, as she was questioning the word mapping accuracy. I think she had seen it on social media. A huge amount of information shared is inaccurate or misleading. This is, of course, often unintentional. It makes word mapping harder to understand however, and teaching phonics with accuracy is important.

The children are asked to write a sentence using one of the words shown on the screen. The focus is on the /əʊ/ phoneme, mapped to the grapheme oe. We see words like foe, potatoes, and tiptoe, all of which contain the oe grapheme representing /əʊ/.

But then we see "goes". I have circled it on the image as it shows the oe grapheme. It is not accurate.

❌ What’s wrong with using the word "goes" when looking at /oe/?

The word goes is made up of the graphemes:

• g – o – es

• Spoken as: /g/ /əʊ/ /z/

The /əʊ/ sound in goes is represented by the grapheme o, not oe. The es at the end is a grammatical suffix that marks subject–verb agreement (he goes, she goes). The base word is go, and the suffix es is added for grammar, not to spell the vowel sound.

Including goes in a list of oe grapheme words is inaccurate. It misleads children about how sounds map to spellings. So t oe yes…

 Toes vs Goes: Why the mapping differs

Toes

 • Spoken: /t/ /əʊ/ /z/

 • Mapped: t – oe – s

In “toes”, each sound corresponds to a straightforward grapheme:

 • t = /t/

 • oe = /əʊ/ (long O sound)

 • s = /z/ (voiced at the end, as is common in plurals)

This follows a regular phoneme–grapheme correspondence, so children can decode and encode it easily if they’ve been taught oe as a spelling of /əʊ/.

⸻

Goes

 • Spoken: /g/ /əʊ/ /z/

 • Mapped: g – o – es

Here’s where it gets interesting.

 • The “oe” sound is still pronounced /əʊ/, but it’s spelled differently because of the morphology and word history.

 • “Goes” comes from the verb “go”, with -es added for subject–verb agreement (he/she/it goes).

 • Rather than spelling the vowel sound with oe (as in “toes”), the word keeps the base go, and then adds -es, as in does, goes, heroes.

So in “goes”, the spelling preserves the base word go, even though the pronunciation might suggest oe. This is a good example of morphological transparency taking priority over phonemic regularity.

Summary:

 • “Toes” = fully phonetically regular

 • “Goes” = phonemically logical but spelling is shaped by morphology (keep the base word “go” intact and add -es)

✅ Why this matters

Phonics instruction is meant to help children understand how spoken sounds map to written letters. When a word is used in the wrong context, it creates confusion. This can be especially challenging for children with speech, language and communication needs, dyslexia, ADHD, or early decoding difficulties.

Incorrect mapping disrupts the logic of the code. Children may start guessing instead of decoding. They lose trust in phonics as a reliable tool. Use the MyWordz® tech to SHOW the graphemes AND phonemes (sound value) with Phonemies! The IPA symbols for toes are /təʊ/z and for goes are ɡ/əʊ/z The same sounds, other than the first, but the graphemes change! The concept is far easier to understand as made visible.

✔️ Teach the code with clarity

The /əʊ/ phoneme can be spelled in different ways, such as oe, ow, o, or oa, as seen in the Spelling Cloud®. These are displayed on the Speech Sound Wall and on tables - the Spelling Cloud® Mat and Spelling Cloud® Keyrings.

But not every word with /əʊ/ and the letters oe is using the oe grapheme. Accurate word mapping identifies which letters are mapping to the the sound, not which patterns look familiar.

Word Mapping Mastery® coaches make sure not to be "blinded by the letters". They learn to identify the actual grapheme–phoneme correspondences in the full word, rather than relying on guesswork or letter clusters.

This is similar to how we map words like scary and story:

• scary: /s/ /k/ /eə/ /r/ /i/ → mapped s – c – a – r – y

• story: /s/ /t/ /ɔː/ /r/ /i/ → mapped s – t – o – r – y

In both cases, the letter sequences ar and or are not functioning as graphemes. The vowel sounds /eə/ and /ɔː/ are mapped by a and o, and the r is a separate grapheme representing the /r/ phoneme.

This type of full-word mapping builds a deeper understanding of the code. It helps children become confident, independent readers and accurate spellers who excel at self-teaching.

📣 Ready to master word mapping?

👉 Get started with Speech Sound Mapping at SpeechSoundPlay.com

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