Orthographic Mapping - Levelling Up Your Reader

Let's take a minute to chat about how kids go from 'slow pop reading' when they are reading at a slow and laboured pace and possibly losing meaning of the text - to reading with automaticity, speed and flow and retaining meaning for reading comprehension.

In the beginnings, there is no getting around slower, laboured reading. Kids learn the code and then they need to sound out words one by one as a part of developing their reading skills. 

However, there comes a time when we start to wonder, when is our kid going to start reading with more speed, flow and consistency and get better reading comprehension?

As a parent, we want to see the progress, however we need to take a step back and understand the brain's processes behind what is happening when they are reading words to understand how and when they are going to 'level up' so that we know how to help them level up quicker.

Orthographic mapping holds the key to this level up process. 🔐

Orthographic mapping is a process that they brain goes through when a child has read a word a certain amount of times and then begun to 'map' that string of letters in the brain for automatic recall, sans the sounding out process!

I like to explain this process to my students like developing a clear photograph of the string of letters that make up the word in our brains. The first time that we read the word, we may start to develop a very faint 'picture' of this string of letters. Then we read it again, and again and every time we read that one word, the brain will make a stronger, better connection of that particular string of letters until the point when the brain has very clearly mapped that word and we no longer need to sound it out. We are now at the point of 'see it and say it' and on our way to faster, more effortless reading.

We can relate to the concept of orthographic mapping through our own experiences as adults. Think about when you spell a word incorrectly. We possess the ability to determine whether it appears correct or not. This is due to our extensive exposure to the word, allowing us to match it with its associated string of letters that we have orthographically mapped.

So how long does this process of orthographic mapping take?

A typically developing reader might require around 4 to 14 exposures to a word to establish effective mapping for later instantaneous recognition. In contrast, a struggling reader might need to encounter the same word anywhere from 14 to 40 times for proper mapping. For a child with dyslexia, this figure could escalate to 40 to 200 encounters before the brain completes the process of orthographically mapping the word for rapid retrieval.

Knowing this, we can understand how kids with dyslexia fall behind when they do not get taught to decode words properly and then not get enough reading practice using decodable text to get them to the point of mapping words to be established readers.

So, how can we encourage orthographic mapping in children?

Firstly, this is not a skill that we can teach. The key lies in extensive reading practice. The more a child reads, the greater the opportunity for their brain to map the words they encounter.

As parents, we can introduce our kids to suitable texts that are either decodable or, if they've progressed beyond this stage and possess a solid grasp of letter-sound relationships, encourage them to explore early starter books such as Dog Man, Billy B Brown, or Tom Gates and make time and culture within your family to regularly read. 

Ultimately, the key to levelling up your kid to become a faster, more efficient reader is to allocate dedicated time for reading practice, with appropriate text that they can read through decoding, thereby facilitating a smoother reading experience. 🚀✨