Phoneme Grapheme Mapping

This activity is very much like Elkonin boxes, but it is used with students who are learning more complex spelling patterns and less-frequent sound spellings. This works very well for older students who need to slow down and think about all of the sounds they hear in a word. The teacher says the words and students map each sound in a box on the grid.

This example shows how to map a variety of graphemes and spelling patterns. For instruction, the teacher would emphasize one or two patterns or vowel spellings per lesson. In the examples below, notice that each letter in a consonant blend represents a sound and is written in a separate box. However, vowel digraph or consonant digraphs represent a single sound (ai in stain or th in faith) and the digraph is written in only one box. The silent e at the end of a word like lame is written in the same box as the final consonant sound. This convention in English indicates that the final e influences the vowel sound, which is usually a long vowel sound.  You can learn more about this technique in Kathryn Grace's 2005 book, Phonics and Spelling through Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping.

Use grid paper or white boards to map the words by phonemes.

Check Your Understanding

Consider how many phonemes (sounds) you hear in the following words and select the letters that represent the sounds in the boxes. Refer to the sample given above if you need help remembering how to segment the sounds.