How Phoneme-Grapheme Mats Help Kids Read and Write with Confidence Have you ever watched a child sound out a word perfectly, only to struggle with how to spell it? Maybe they write laugh as laf or can’t figure out how to spell toy because they haven’t learned the oy sound yet. English spelling is full of tricky patterns that aren’t always obvious just by listening. Traditional word walls don’t give students the tools they need to make sense of spelling. That’s where phoneme-grapheme desktop mats come in! These Science of Reading-aligned reference charts provide a structured way for kids to connect speech sounds (phonemes) with their possible spellings (graphemes), making both reading and writing easier. What Are Phoneme-Grapheme Mats? Phoneme-grapheme mats are individual reference charts that display the phonemes in American English alongside the common ways they are spelled. When students are trying to spell a word, they can break it into phonemes, then use the chart to find the...
