Speech Sound Play with Phonemies: A Sound Start for Neurodivergent, EAL, & Non-Speaking Learners
10-day plan with MySpeekie® to develop speech sound awareness through Phonemies Play – before starting systematic synthetic phonics (SSP).
Phonemies help us connect letters and sounds throughout the day!
Phonics connects speech sounds to letters. It is the foundation of reading and spelling — a code that helps children make sense of written language.
But that code only works if it's shown in full, throughout the day. This happens through Speech Sound Play and the visual–auditory scaffolding of Phonemies, using words that are meaningful in the moment.
Synthetic phonics programmes introduce only a limited set of 'core' grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs), often leaving children to guess the rest.
It doesn't have to be that way! We can Show the Code all day!
Use MyWordz® with MySpeekie® tech to show the code — live, in real time.
It’s also the perfect speech-to-print spell-check tool.
Code Mapped Words® reveal all the spelling choices for every sound, so no part of the code is missing. Check the word mapping at any time.
Making phonics more user-friendly - and therefore more effective, and fun!
Phonics with the Phonemies Family!
Phonemies are Speech Sound Monsters
The Core Code consists of around 90–100 GPCs (Sound Pics) that children can learn quickly and easily within four SSP Code Levels or Letters and Sounds Phases 2 - 5. This knowledge kick-starts the process and means that children can begin to explore the whole alphabetic code, which includes over 350 GPCs! They will encounter the vast majority of this outside of phonics lessons, during reading andwriting activties and while working through the 1, 2, 3 and Away series of 150 books.
Letters and Sounds with Phonemies: Which Letters? Which Sounds?
Learning the Monster Sounds is easy peasy! Then we just 'follow the monster sounds to say the word!'
This will help us reveal the code behind high-frequency words and store them in our mental word banks with speed and ease!
The missing piece of the phonics puzzle!
Exploring the universal spelling code
throughout the day!
What will we discover today?
The missing piece of the reading and spelling puzzle is what happens outside of explicit phonics lessons, throughout the day.
The ‘code knowledge’ of adults has always mattered. Researchers like Louisa Moats have shown that teachers often struggle to connect letters and sounds beyond what programmes provide.
Our new tech bridges that gap. Children are shown what teachers may not (yet) know. On the job training is cost effective, and teachers learn what they need, when they need it.
They still use their systematic phonics programme but understand far more about why reading and spelling can be so hard for so many little learners. And why they can’t get them all over the line when phonics is a separate lesson, and doesn’t connect to real world reading and writing.
I am researching a surprising phenomenon in a country (England) seemingly obsessed with phonics. I argue that the excessive attention to it, and the millions spent on synthetic phonics programmes, is more a symptom that it is not working as intended.
But more explicit instruction is not the answer. We have tried that - along with more testing - for twenty years. Fewer now read for pleasure, and that has not happened in other comparable countries such as Canada and Australia.
When teachers are not sure how phonemes and graphemes map, when supporting children as they try to read or spell unfamiliar words, they can now check using MyWordz® with MySpeekie®.
Children as young as two can use it too. It is a great tool to support speech and language skills.
When we ‘show the code’ and show all of it, as there are no restrictions on words children can see how to read and spell, it might actually be the adults who benefit most.
No one else is showing them how to map words clearly and completely or model this throughout the day. Their programmes only show them a core set of around 100 GPCs. There are over 350.
The tech does it for them. Children need their own tablet. Sorry to those fighting to keep tech out of classrooms, but this will mean they can read and spell what they like, at any time, with no restrictions or adult required for that purpose.
No waiting for help. No feeling stupid asking how to read or spell a word in front of peers. No restrictions: all words ’decodable’! Instantly!!
Phonemies show all spelling choices for every English sound, how to check the mapping of every word, and how to understand what those words mean. Better still, the way we do it means those connections are stored in the brain’s word bank, not just memorised.
When children see the word again, they recognise it instantly and know how to spell it in their writing.
They can do this at home! Schools can actually give each reception / prep parent access to the app version for £5.75 per year. They can keep exploring at home! Parents often struggle to know which letters go with which sounds too.
Word recognition and correct spelling are not all that is needed to become a fluent reader. However, they free up the cognitive resources required to get there.
We can get them all to the reading for pleasure stage far earlier.
And you can now add in a 10-day plan before starting any DfE listed synthetic phonics, so that they know how to ‘quack the code’ outside of explicit phonics lessons.
It also includes the world’s first AAC for non-speaking children. They can use it to articulate sounds during synthetic phonics lessons and to demonstrate knowledge!
Miss Emma X