Letters and Sounds Phase 1 with Phonemies: A Sound Start to KS1 for Non-Speaking, EAL & Neurodivergent Learners
10-day plan with MySpeekie® to develop speech sound awareness through Phonemies Play – before starting systematic synthetic phonics (SSP).
Speech Sound Spelling with MySpeekie®!
So much more than the world’s first one-screen AAC device!
Did you know that children who can isolate and manipulate speech sounds early on are far more likely to become confident, independent readers—even before formal instruction begins?
When spelling words, children need to isolate the speech sounds (phonemes) in the word and assign the correct 'Speech Sound Pics®'—i.e., graphemes (one or more letters)—in the right order. If the word is already stored in the orthographic lexicon (the brain’s word bank), then they are retrieving something already there: they know the speech sounds, the assigned Sound Pics®, and the meaning. When they write the word, they know it is right because it looks right—it matches the stored word.
Being able to recognise whether a word looks right really matters. Storing words matters. Otherwise, children have to rely only on the Sound Pics® they know from phonics instruction. They will only learn around 100 of the 350+ understood and used by skilled readers to read with fluency and comprehension. When people say "they are spelling phonetically," they usually mean the child can split up the sounds, but isn’t choosing the correct Sound Pics to match those sounds—you might see ‘sed’ or ‘woz’, for example. They aren't 'seeing' the Sound Pics® /ai/ and /a/ in those words ie s /ai/ d and w/ a / s
When a child spells a word incorrectly, we might show them the word three or four times (with only one spelt with the correct grapheme to phoneme correspondences) and ask which version 'looks right'. If they choose the correct one, they’re likely saying it correctly when reading—but they’re not storing it, for correct retrieval when writing. This is why we use Solo or Paired Code Mapping / Decoding in all grade levels—it helps children pay closer attention to both the speech sounds and the spelling, which is essential if they are to store the words. These activities are outlined on the Word Mapping Mastery site®
This is a Speech Sound Pics (SSP) Approach trained parent.
Now that we have the tech she could print off the mapped word after seeing if the child recognises the correctly spelt word.
By far the most effective way for children to store new words in the orthographic lexicon is by using MySpeekie®—because it starts from what they already know: the sounds in the words. If they can isolate the sounds (a core difficulty for children with dyslexia), it helps with that too. Children can be given a word that’s already mapped and then play the word. Typing the sounds and seeing the target word helps create new neural pathways in the brain—overcoming phonemic awareness deficits.
You can generate this ready-mapped word in one of two ways: use Check Word or Map and Drag if the word isn’t in the word bank (dataset). This means children can practise with words they actually care about—which increases engagement. A child who loves Minecraft is going to be interested in learning to spell words related to that! And because it doesn’t matter which grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences they’re learning within a phonics programme, they can just get on with it.
It’s also a fantastic alternative to existing AAC tech, as it’s one screen—and children can say whatever they want without wading through hundreds of picture symbols and pre-set words.
Children learning to speak English can use this too—parents or teachers can choose a word or sentence for the child to practise. The child types the sounds, checks that the words match the card, and then listens to the word or sentence voiced. They can then repeat it.
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