We are wired to learn to speak. It is natural process for most people, but reading is not natural and must be taught. Current brain research on the science of reading demonstrates the benefits of teaching from “speech to print”. Using a “speech to print” approach in reading instruction makes sense when considering learning to read from the learner’s perspective. Typically, most programs and approaches to reading begin with print and teach students to match letters to sounds.  The purpose of this presentation is to explain why shifting from a word wall to a sound wall facilitates learning in an efficient and effective manner using “speech to print”. Ehri’s phases of reading development (Ehri, 2014) will be used as the theoretical basis to support this shift in instruction. Ehri has published multiple papers on her research which has informed our instruction and how beginning readers move from a preliterate stage of guessing based on the shape of a word or a logographic image to becoming a proficient reader with a consolidated understanding of how speech and print work together. Using a sound wall helps a student to attend to the sound structure of spoken English words moving to the connection and combination of phonemes and graphemes. Once students understand how speech maps to print, they are more likely to establish a stable memory of spelling patterns. The stable memory of patterns is known as orthographic mapping. Orthographic mapping is the process that readers use to store written words for instant and effortless retrieval.  

The English language has twice as many phonemes as the Spanish language.  While building a sound wall, we will discuss the differences between Spanish and English phonology. To synthesize all of the information from the session we will use the sound wall to propose alternative solutions to teach from speech to print.

Agenda

• Introduction to Ehri’s Phases of Reading Development
• Understanding the production of speech sounds and articulatory features of English phonemes
• Connecting the phases of reading and production of speech sounds to building a sound wall
• Considering graphemes and patterns in the English language represented by our phonemes
• Compare and contrast the differences between a word wall and a sound wall
• Building a sound wall by using our understanding of mapping speech to print