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Phonics Reform England: Not reading reform. Phonics reform. Improving phonics for the one in five at risk of struggling to read and spell.
The English Code Overlay (ECO)
Try the Lite Version on https://www.speediereadies.com/orthographic-mapping-tool
Supporting the Development of Orthographic Mapping Through Explicit Grapheme Representation
Explicitly showing children which letters function as graphemes and what sound value each represents supports the development of orthographic knowledge by making the structure of written words visible and learnable. When children can see how speech sounds are represented in print, they are better able to form precise connections between phonemes and graphemes, which is essential for building stable word representations in memory. Research on orthographic mapping shows that these connections enable words to be stored efficiently in the orthographic lexicon, allowing for rapid and accurate word recognition without reliance on guessing or memorisation (Ehri, 2014). This process depends on the quality of the phoneme–grapheme links that are established, with clearer, more explicit mapping supporting stronger learning outcomes (Kilpatrick, 2015). By highlighting graphemes and their corresponding sound values, instruction reduces ambiguity, supports accurate segmentation and blending, and strengthens the integration of phonological and orthographic information, thereby facilitating the transition from effortful decoding to automatic word recognition and spelling.
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. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.819356
Kilpatrick, D. A. (2015). Essentials of assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Wiley.
The Code Mapping® tool displays each word fully segmented into graphemes, with every grapheme shown as a complete unit in sequence across the word. The alternating black and grey colours do not add extra information. They simply show where one grapheme ends and the next begins, so the reader can see the structure of the word clearly. Blue is used to denote a split digraph.
When Phonemies are shown, they act as IPA-aligned phonetic symbols, displaying the phoneme element of the grapheme–phoneme correspondence (GPC). This system shows the whole alphabetic code, including the many correspondences that are not taught explicitly within systematic phonics lessons.
When the grapho-phonemic structure is visible, cognitive load is reduced. The focus then becomes how much support each child needs, because the goal is that they are able to see and use this code independently, without the English Code Overlay (ECO).
