Mapped Sight Word Bank: Showing the Sight Word Code
We are building the largest Mapped Word Bank in the world to help your child quickly store hundreds of high-frequency words in their brain’s word bank, enabling instant recognition when reading and accurate spelling when writing. We show the Sight Word Code!
We help you support your child to learn hundreds of high-frequency words before they even start school. Monster Mapping® builds motivation and curiosity, so children want to keep learning more each day.
No memorising words. No rules. We use what we know about the science of learning.
Please support our work, showing children the sight word code, at MappedWords.com
Word Mapping Mastery®
training now included in your membership!
“This explained why phonics never worked for my child, and what actually does.”
“Once I stopped explaining and started showing, everything changed.”
“My child worked it out without being taught. I didn’t think that was possible before.”
“This removed confusion instead of adding more instructions.”
“I realised I was getting in the way. Showing the code let my child take over.”
The feedback just keeps coming!
When we show the word code for all words, we show which letters work together as graphemes, and Phonemies (Speech Sound Monsters®) show the sound value, so children simply call it Monster Mapping®. We loved the phrase Monster Mapping so much we trademarked it!:-) The written word code is shown as and when each individual needs it. Children don’t need to wait until they reach a certain point in a programme to read or spell words, because of the Phonemies, and they don't need to guess or memorise when they have access to the MyWordz® tech. Join as a Speedie member to access the training and support area, as well as the E-Library of One Two, Three and Away! books.
Another Missing Link: Speedie Sight Words, Useful for Some and Crucial for at Least 1 in 4 Children
Within the Speedie Word Mapping training you will understand why some children learn to read with ease, with no formal instruction. There are conditions that need too be in place.
The magic ingredient that brings all of this together is phonemic awareness.
The research on this is clear.
What happens for these children is not that they are memorising word shapes. They are not confusing words like horse and house, even though they look similar. Their brains are doing exactly what the science tells us reading requires. They are recognising patterns. They are connecting letters and sounds. And they are doing it for a reason.
Grapheme–phoneme correspondences are not learned in a strict order because there are simply too many of them. High-frequency words are arguably far more important for self-teachers. Children understand these words quickly and easily, and they make up a huge proportion of the text they encounter.
So, if phonics is being used to teach children to map words, we would expect the core focus to be on mapping high-frequency words. Right?
No.
That is why we set up MappedWords.com, to show the code behind so-called sight words.
In the classrooms I support, this part is huge. Children in Reception often encounter around 400 of these words.
If you look at the expectations set out by the Department for Education in England, the number is closer to 40. Teachers are also instructed to introduce them slowly and to link them to the order of taught GPCs.
“Ensure they’re taught to decode and spell common-exception words (sometimes called ‘tricky’ words), appropriate to their level of progress in the programme.”
“Programmes should teach children to read and then spell the most common-exception words, noting the part of a word that makes it an exception word. These words should be introduced gradually.”
This contributes directly to why so many children struggle to read. For at least 1 in 4 children, the biggest barrier is not their ability to learn to map words, but the way we teach them. These children can bond speech, sounds, and meaning with ease when the instruction makes that possible.
The directive to introduce high-frequency words slowly does not exist because children cannot learn them. It exists because phonics programmes have not worked out how to ensure that every child can map them successfully. The problem is instructional design, not learning capacity.
This matters because it is entirely solvable. In the classrooms I support, using the Speech Sound Pics (SSP) Approach children in Prep/ Reception can read and spell over 400 high-frequency words accurately. This is not exceptional children. It is effective instruction.
Anyone using a synthetic phonics programme needs to teach high-frequency words separately. Parents can do this at home. The key is timing and clarity. Start in Term 1, once children have been introduced to phonics and understand that reading is about mapping speech sounds to print. When that foundation is in place, these words are not “tricky” at all. They are simply part of the code.
These important words must not be introduced gradually. One reason children who learn to read without direct instruction progress so quickly is that they recognise many of these words by sight. They can also spell them accurately because they know when a word does not look right on the page.
Show the Sight Word Code with Mapped Words®
Research shows that children learn written words by storing links between speech sounds, spellings, and meaning in memory. When these links are made visible and consistent, the brain becomes increasingly efficient at recognising words instantly and spelling them accurately. This is how fluent reading and writing develop. It is a myth that sight words are words that should be memorised to help a child learn to read and write, or that any part of the word needs to be learned by heart.
Without prior mapping of the sounds to letter/s, words are not recognisable by ‘sight’. As we become more efficient readers, all words will be ‘sight’ words (Ehri, 2014) To build sight words in memory, orthographic mapping is required. Readers must form connections between the spellings and pronunciations of specific words with their meaning. When readers see a new word and say or hear its pronunciation, making note of the letters that serve as graphemes, and the phonemes they correspond to in that particular word, its spelling becomes mapped onto its pronunciation and meaning. These mapping connections serve to “glue” spellings to their pronunciation in memory.
Until now they would need to rely on prior phonics knowledge, or use alternative strategies if they cannot decode the word, or arrive at it through partial decoding. They may use initial letters plus context cues in the sentence, the passage, or pictures to anticipate what the word might be. Once a word is predicted, then its pronunciation is matched to the spelling on the page to verify that the sounds fit the letters. This is not a strategy that is taught or encouraged in England.
​
Phonics programmes teach grapheme–phoneme correspondences, but only a limited subset of the written code. Typically, around 100 correspondences are taught across Reception and Year 1, and tested in the Phonics Screener Check at the end of Year 1. These programmes are designed to be completed within those two years, after which no further correspondences are systematically introduced. From that point on, children are reliant on teachers to show word structure incidentally throughout the day. Many teachers are not confident mapping words beyond programme content, and most do not have the time, resources, or access to technology needed to show every child how speech sounds, spelling, and meaning connect for the wide range of words they encounter.
As a result, for the vast majority of commonly used words children meet in Reception and Key Stage 1, the correspondences within those words are never shown. Children are left to guess or memorise words. In the case of high-frequency words such as said, was, because, and the, children are often expected to memorise them, even though this is not Department for Education policy. This practice arises because teachers do not have the capacity or tools to meet individual needs at scale. Children are therefore asked to read and spell words containing untaught correspondences without access to the underlying structure of the written code. For the first time, Mapped Words® technology allows children to see the code at the point they actually need it. Teaching Assistants are trained to support this work on a one-to-one basis.
Mapped Words® technology directly addresses gaps in phonics programmes. Instead of restricting children to a small, preselected portion of the code, with all children taught the same correspondences at the same pace, it shows the full range of correspondences within words as they are encountered. Speech sounds, spellings, and meaning are shown together in real time, allowing children to access and store words that would otherwise remain opaque. When children use the spelling routine, words are stored efficiently. For children with secure phonemic awareness, a single supported exposure and walkthrough of the spelling routine is usually sufficient for the word to be retained and recalled accurately months later.
The structure of phonics programmes, alongside national data in England showing that at least 1 in 4 children have not reached minimum expected levels in reading and spelling by age 11, exposes a fundamental mismatch between what we know about how the brain learns written words and the instruction being provided. For example, some Reception teachers are encouraged to set targets of only around 40 common exception words across the year, not because children are incapable of learning hundreds of words, but because programmes and training do not show teachers how to make the written code visible. Expectations are lowered due to programme limitations and time pressures, not learner capacity.
In contrast, the children in the Reception classrooms we support are mapping and storing over 400 high-frequency words, because the structure of those words is shown rather than withheld and the spelling routine is understood. Teaching Assistants are trained to provide one-to-one word mapping support in class while children are reading or writing, and for ten minutes a day outside the busy classroom for children identified as at high risk of dyslexia, while they continue to attend phonics lessons. Our aim is Word Mapping Mastery®, preventing the dyslexia paradox so that every child learns to read with confidence at the point that is right for them between birth and age seven. Many children become fluent and enthusiastic readers years before starting school, because they are shown the code when they need it, rather than waiting for it to be taught.
Parents and tutors can also learn how to support this approach by completing the two-hour on-demand training with The Sight Word Code expert Emma Hartnell-Baker.
Children are not failing to learn. They are being asked to learn without being shown the full system. When the written code is made visible, children learn faster, remember more, and develop confidence and motivation to keep learning.
Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5-21. doi: 10.1080/10888438.2013.819356