Children who learn to map words early achieve Word Mapping Mastery quickly and learn to read and spell with confidence. Speedie Readies: Preventing the Dyslexia Paradox.
Word Mapping Made Easy
Children who learn to map words early achieve Word Mapping Mastery quickly and learn to read with confidence.
Speedie Readies: Preventing the Dyslexia Paradox. An initiative from The Early Dyslexia Screening Centre.
Speedie Readies
Speedie Readies learn to read quickly, within weeks not years, and build a lifetime of joyful reading.
Get in touch for parent guidance or professional development for those working with children.
1:1 Sessions at the Early Dyslexia Screening Centre.
Ask about Speedie Readies Sessions with SpLD Specialist Emma Hartnell-Baker
Why do children in England need us?
In England, children spend two full years in Reception and Year 1 on synthetic phonics programmes. Yet one in five cannot pass the Phonics Screening Check, and by age 11 one in four still cannot read at the minimum expected level. It is the only country to mandate this, and reading for pleasure has declined on a scale not seen in comparable countries. This shows it does not work.
The response has not been to question the way phonics is being taught. Instead, the Department for Education has looked for others to blame, whether parents, teachers, or the children themselves, often by labelling them with special educational needs. Children do not have special or additional needs when we begin with what they truly need to learn and thrive. The idea of “additional needs” comes from the DfE normalising a one-size-fits-all programmes and viewing difference through a deficit mindset.
Now, with results worsening, plans are being made to test reading in Year 8.
Miss Emma, the Neurodivergent Reading Whisperer®, shows there is another way, when we focus on preventing the dyslexia paradox. With the Speedie Readie system, children see from the very start how speech maps to print and how print maps back to speech. They begin reading real words and stories far more quickly and easily. Speedie Readies start self-teaching early, with word mapping mastery facilitating reading fluency and comprehension for all.
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What makes a Speedie Readie
Speedie Readies are children who connect sounds and letters quickly, confidently, and joyfully.
At the core is word mapping as an activity children do every day as an extension of their speech, especially when they are doing this from birth Children are mapping in both directions, speech to print and print to speech, inside meaningful words and stories. The brain process that results is orthographic mapping. When this process is established, children reach Word Mapping Mastery®.
How children become Speedie Readies
Option 1: With a professional
Children aged 3 - 5 at nursery sing, rhyme, and explore sounds with their practitioner, who swaps regular spoken words for words said in speech sounds using Duck Hands®. They learn the Monster Moves and Phonemies Sounds, becoming familiar with the idea of “follow the Monster Sounds to say the word.”
Words in their environment are mapped so that print becomes meaningful and connected to speech. The children hear the story of the Speech Sound King in Speech Sound Cloud® Land, and play with the Speech Sound Monsters®, puppets, and finger puppets. They are also introduced to the Story Peg People (wooden dolls) and act out tales from The Village With Three Corners, bringing stories and sounds to life through play.
They begin to understand that when we put words on paper, the sounds we use are recorded from left to right, and that the links between spoken and written words are highly structured and mathematical. Because they are working predominantly from speech to print, using the pictures of the speech sounds and Phonemies to show each sound value, they are able to explore any word with curiosity and confidence before any explicit and systematic phonics instruction takes place. They start that when they are ready, and no sooner!
Children in Reception begin with the 10 Day Speech Sound Play Plan.
Across the ten days children within the neurodiverse classroom:
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Form lower case letters used in the words they map, and numbers 1 to 9
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Meet Duck Hands®, Lines and Numbers, the Speech Sound King, and the Speech Sound Monsters® in Speech Sound Cloud Land
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Explore the Spelling Clouds® to see how sounds belong together
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Begin by mapping their own names so the learning is personal and meaningful
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Map Green Code Level (s a t p i n) words in both directions
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Practise on screen if they are not yet ready to write by hand
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Follow the Phonemies® to say any word, even before they know all the letters
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Translate those sounds into their own accent, with accent awareness introduced straight away
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Use MyWordz® technology inside the plan so graphemes, Phonemies, and mappings come to life
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Join in through MySpeekie® if they are non-speaking, so they do exactly the same activities without feeling less than
Professionals guide this work with the Word Mapping Mastery® book and the revised One, Two, Three and Away! handbook for Word Mapping Mastery®.
Option 2: At home with parents
Parents of children aged 3 - 5 will learn how to move towards the Speedie Readies system when they :
Start with the Monster Spelling Piano app to explore sounds, letters, and word mapping
Work towards the Purple Code milestone to show readiness to read
Enjoy the 36 Monster Mapped Pre-Readers where every sound to letter link is visible
Move into the Introductory Books and then the wider library at The Reading Hut
Children with strong phonemic awareness may need very little guidance
Children who need more support receive it through clear mapping and meaningful practice
Keeo reading for pleasure, and exploring the mapping of new words using MyWordz technology
However there are so many things that parents can do at home to prevent the dyslexia paradox from birth to three! Ask about workshops and 1:1 support.
Why this works
Synthetic phonics has been mandated in England for over a decade. Children complete two years on programmes in Reception and Year 1, all at the same pace, yet one in five cannot pass the Phonics Screening Check, and one in four cannot read at the expected level by age 11. England is the only country to mandate such an approach, and reading for pleasure has fallen sharply. Rather than question the tools, blame is often shifted to parents, teachers, or the children themselves.
This is where we see the dyslexia paradox play out. The term refers to the contradiction that dyslexia can be identified long before it is usually diagnosed, yet most children are not supported until they have already experienced reading failure. In other words, we know how to recognise risk early but typically intervene too late.
The Speedie Readies approach to early prevention, and intervention when necessary, shows that phonics itself is not the problem. Phonics is essential. What matters is how children are supported to connect speech and print in ways that make sense to each individual child.
Daily word mapping activities make the code visible and speech sound play meaningful. MyWordz® and MySpeekie® include every child from day one, offering a one-screen AAC for non-speaking children. As orthographic mapping takes hold, children reach the self-teaching phase, when Word Mapping Mastery® becomes possible. They read independently and for pleasure, and view spelling as a code-cracking puzzle they can solve without help.
Call to action
Miss Emma can guide you and your child towards becoming Speedie Readies through face-to-face sessions at the Early Dyslexia Screening Centre in West Parley. Early Years Providers can also attend training to bring these preventative practices into their settings.
We also ask you to encourage your local library to stock the One, Two, Three and Away! books and accompanying teacher handbook so that every child has the opportunity to read for pleasure and experience the joy of language from the very beginning.
01202 082330
1:1 Support for Speedie Readies at The Early Dyslexia Screening Centre
