The Science of Reading tells us that Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping is an effective way to promote the mental process of orthographic mapping, help students build their word recognition and become stronger readers. In this post, you’ll get ideas to practice mapping words with your students, details about my Phoneme Grapheme Word Mapping Bundle and a FREE CVC Word Mapping activity perfect for the Kindergarten, first or second grade classroom!
Lately, I have taken a head-first dive into the Science of Reading! I have learned so much about how children actually learn to read. I’ve said goodbye to flashcards and rote memorization and fallen in love with Sound Walls, Heart Words and now….Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping activities! These are all research-based, powerful, engaging ways to help students build their word recognition skills to permanently store words into their sight word memory (this is called orthographic mapping).

Today I’m excited to share what I’ve learned from research on the Science of Reading and through David Kilpatrick’s book, Equipped for Reading Success about phoneme-grapheme mapping. I’ll provide ideas for activities to give students practice mapping words, share details about my own Word Mapping Mega Bundle, and leave you with a FREEBIE to get you started!
What is Word Mapping?
First, let’s remember that every word has three forms. They have sounds or phonemes, letters or letter combinations (graphemes), and meaning.
Students use the oral language processing part of their brain to map, or connect, the sounds (phonemes) of the word to the letters or letter combinations (graphemes) in a word. This process is called orthographic mapping and it is the mental process we use to permanently store words for immediate retrieval. It is how we take an unfamiliar word and immediately turn it into a sight word.
Word mapping is a physical way to represent the relationship between the phonemes and graphemes. It allows students to physically connect or match the letters with the sounds they represent and helps to encourage the process of orthographic mapping. Ultimately it helps build word recognition and decoding skills that improve fluency in both reading and writing.
When mapping a word with students these are the four basic steps to follow:
- Start with the meaning. Say the word aloud, show your students a picture of the word and make sure they know what it means.
- Now encourage your students to segment the word into sounds. Students can tap their fingers together for each sound they hear.
- Next, place a manipulative down in a sound box for each sound or phoneme they hear.
- Finally, add the graphemes. Match the letter or letter pairs to the phonemes in the given word.

Phoneme Mapping Activities and Ideas
As teachers, we need to give our students plenty of activities that help strengthen their phoneme-grapheme associations.
There are a lot of different activities out there! Because they have both a visual and kinesthetic aspects students find them highly engaging. Here are a few of my favorites….
Silicone Bubble Poppers: These things are all the trend these days so your students will no doubt LOVE using them to help map out their words. Students simply push down a popper for each phoneme they hear in the given word. They then write out the grapheme for each of the phonemes they “popped”.


Linking Cubes: Physical linking cubes allow students to build out the given word into phonemes. Students can touch each cube to represent each sound. They then link the cubes together and write out the graphemes that represent each cube. This helps to show students how mapping graphemes to phonemes looks visually.

Playdoh Balls: First, give students their own laminated sound box sheet and some play-doh. Have them create little balls of play-doh for each phoneme they hear in the given word. Then they squish the ball with their finger as they repeat each sound aloud. Finally, they can write the graphemes to match each sound. If you don’t want to use play-doh you can always do the same thing with counters, counting bears, coins, whatever you have at your disposal!

My Word Mapping Resource
Word mapping activities are no doubt a powerful way to help students build their word recognition and decoding skills. The only downside is that creating the activities can take a lot of time! With everything else on your plate I realize you may not have time to prep mapping activities for ALL the phonics patterns you want your students to learn. So to help save your valuable prep time, I have gone ahead and created my own printable and digital Word Mapping Resource!

This resource has EVERYTHING you need to get students mapping words in your classroom. It includes interactive digital slides for over 485 words!

Students will see a picture of the word to build meaning and hear an audio recording of the word. Then they will map the phonemes (sounds) they hear, and finally spell the word using graphemes.
This resource also comes with mapping boards and word image cards for your guided group instruction and independent practice.

The phoneme tapping and mapping worksheets provide practice with short vowels, blends, digraphs, long vowels, CVCe, R-controlled, and diphthong words. You’ll get 42 printables with self-checking answer keys that are perfect for independent student practice, literary centers, homework, or left as a meaningful activity for a substitute.

Ready to give Word Mapping a try in your classroom? To get you started I’m sharing FREE CVC Word Mapping activities! This sample makes a perfect literacy center or independent activity! Grab it here:
I hope the information, ideas and resources I’ve shared today will motivate you to bring word mapping into your classroom as you help your students become stronger readers!
–PIN for LATER–

I love all the SOR information being shared and thank you for providing these helpful freebies! Quick question about mapping the word “thumb” – does the ‘b’ make a sound? I would’ve only mapped 3 sounds.
YIKES!! You are correct, that is what I get for staying up late and working! I’ve corrected it. Thanks for letting me know! 🙂
Are tutors allowed to use these resources? I tutor one-on-one with local students, both on Zoom and in person. I am not part of a big company, it is just me. Please let me know, as these resources are just wonderful! TIA for your response 🙂
Hi Denise,
You can use the resources you purchase from me for private tutoring, I hope they helpful in your instruction with your students! 🙂 -Christina
How would you teach -or words like “doctor” and “author”? Wouldn’t they be grouped with -er, -ir, -ur words?
How would you include -gh as an /f/ sound, like “laugh” and “cough”?
How does this method/program compare/word with “Phonics Dance”/Hunks and Chunks method/program? Are they compatible?
Hi Heather,
You would map the words by the phonemes:
doctor- d-o-c-t-or
author- au-th-or
laugh- l-au-gh
cough-c-ou-gh
I am not familiar with Phonics Dance, PGM is an instructional strategy to promote orthographic mapping of words so it would seem to compliment any program?
Hope this is helpful!
-Christina
Hi, your resources are amazing! Thank you!
Do you know of a list / app / resource that teaches how to segment a long list of common words? I’m teaching my child and am personally struggling to ensure I’m correct. (Eg how do you segment ‘eight’?!)
Hi Xue,
I think my heart Words Resource would be helpful for you. Each of the 220 words maps out the phonemes to the graphemes, including the irregular parts. Check out this blog post to learn more about this resource. Thanks, -Christina
Could the online version be used on an interactive Smartboard?
Hi Christine,
You could definitely project the digital files on your Smartboard, you’d have to control the interactive pieces on your laptop. This is not created in Smartnotebook. Give it a try with this free sample! https://mrswintersbliss.com/product/free-phoneme-grapheme-word-mapping/
🙂 -Christina
Hi,
I love your resources and the phoneme grapheme slides will definitely help me to include these activities in my daily teaching/ learning. I’m wondering where did you buy the silicone bubble poppers from? I see many coloured versions and shapes of poppers on Amazon but am looking for something more simple and uniform like what you show. Thanks!
Hi Lesley,
I purchased this one! https://amzn.to/3d0AbPt
Thanks for your kind words, -Christina
Hi Lesley, Here is the one shown in the blog post! https://amzn.to/3SLk34X 🙂 -Christina
These activities are great!
Just wondering about double letter words eg. Smell? Are each of the l’s their own sound or together? Thanks!
Hi Emma,
Double consonants (the floss rule) e-gg, h-u-ff, ch-i-ll would be one phoneme. Thanks for reading! -Christina
Thank you so much for the free resources, those are extremely helpful in seeing the detail and quality before purchasing a whole bundle. The resources are very detailed and helpful as I am looking for resources to meet the needs of students who are two to three years below grade level.
I’m so happy to hear they are helpful for you Deborah!! Thank you for your kind words, -Christina
How would you map the word ‘call’ ? Would the al go together to make the /aw/ sound?
Hi Barbara,
You’d map call>> c-a-ll. Here os a tool that might be helpful to you in the future!! Thanks for visiting my site! -Christina
https://phonicsandstuff.com/word-mapping?w=call