Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling Memory, and Vocabulary Learning

Orthographic mapping (OM) involves the formation of letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in memory. It explains how children learn to read words by sight, to spell words from memory, and to acquire vocabulary words from print. This development is portrayed by Ehri (2005a Ehri, L. 2005a. “Development of sight word reading: Phases and findings”. In The science of reading: A handbook, Edited by: Snowling, M. and Hulme, C. 135–154. Malden, MA: Blackwell. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) as a sequence of overlapping phases, each characterized by the predominant type of connection linking spellings of words to their pronunciations in memory. During development,…