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When poor spellers begin with the written word, they often try to memorize a spelling as if it were an arbitrary letter string. Arbitrary strings are terribly hard to remember; think how long it takes to learn a phone number, and then imagine trying to learn 88,500 phone numbers--the estimated number of words in printed school English. The wordmapping strategy helps students focus on the pronunciation of a word before seeing its spelling. This helps them understand that a spelling is a meaningful map of the pronunciation. When spellings are understood as pronunciation maps, they are much easier to remember.
The wordmapping procedure has nine steps. For five steps, the student examines the phonological structure of the word by attending to phonemes (mouth movements), all without seeing the word. For the remaining four steps, the student constructs and studies the spelling as a word map.
First, examine the mouth moves of the spoken word. Example
1. Say the word. night
Say the syllables if there are more than one.
2. Stretch the word. /nnnIIIt/
Work syllable by syllable with multisyllabic words.
If a phoneme can't be stretched, exaggerate it.
3. Segment (split up) the phonemes.
Work by syllables if necessary.
First phoneme? /n/
Next phoneme? etc. /I/
Last phoneme? /t/
Skillful spellers may simply report the segments.
4. Count the phonemes. 3
5. Draw blanks. __ ___ __
The blanks stand for the phonemes.
Put slashes between syllables.
Next, construct a word map to learn the spelling.
6. Record the spelling phoneme by phoneme.
On the first blank, write [letters] n ___ __
On next blank, write [letters] n igh __
On last blank, write [letters] n igh t
If there are silent letters, caret them in.
7. Write the word in your best cursive handwriting. night
8. Study the spelling.
Ask what a pattern] says OR What does igh say?
Ask about how a phoneme is spelled OR How do we spell /I/ in night?
Ask what we need to remember about the word. What's tricky about night?
Only ask about tricky parts.
9. Give the meaning.
What does ___ mean? When it's dark out.
A shortcut version of wordmapping:
1. Say
2. Stretch
3. Split up
4. Count
5. Draw blanks
6. Record
7. Write
8. Study
9. Give meaning
