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Why Your Child Struggles to Remember Words: Understanding Orthographic Mapping and Reading Disabilities

Jul 23, 2025

Many children struggle with specific types of reading disabilities or dyslexia. In this article we will take a detailed look at reading disabilities that are due to orthographic mapping difficulties- a critical process the brain uses to store and recognize written words efficiently. Let's break it down.

What Is Orthographic Mapping?

Orthographic mapping is the process our brain uses to take a written word and connect its sounds (phonemes), spelling (graphemes), and meaning together so we can remember and recognize that word instantly in the future.

This is how children go from slowly sounding out words like “c-a-t” to recognizing “cat” in a fraction of a second. Once a word is orthographically mapped, it’s stored in the brain’s “sight word memory”—not because it’s been memorized by shape or guesswork, but because the brain has mapped it sound-by-sound, letter-by-letter.

What Happens When There’s a Breakdown?

A reading disability that affects orthographic mapping—often seen in children with dyslexia—means the child:
• Has difficulty connecting letters to sounds (phonemic awareness)
• Struggles to retain the spelling patterns of familiar words
• Can read a word correctly today but not recognize it tomorrow
• Relies heavily on sounding out words, even those they’ve seen many times
• May appear to have poor memory for words but actually struggles with the mapping process

This isn’t a memory issue—it’s a processing issue.

What Does It Look Like in Real Life?

Meet Lucas (Age 8):

Lucas is bright and curious, but he’s stuck at a first-grade reading level. His parents say, “He can sound out words, but he never remembers them.” He decodes “jump” on one page and then stares at it blankly five minutes later. He spells “train” as “tran” and “brain” as “bran.” Despite extra practice, progress is painfully slow.

Lucas’s brain is struggling with orthographic mapping—he can decode but can’t store words efficiently for future use.

Orthographic Mapping Depends on Three Pillars:
1. Phonemic Awareness
The ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in words.
Example: Breaking “ship” into /sh/ /i/ /p/.
2. Letter-Sound Knowledge (Phonics)
Knowing which letters or combinations make which sounds.
Example: Knowing “ph” makes the /f/ sound.
3. Word Meaning
Connecting the word to something meaningful and familiar.

If even one of these pillars is weak, orthographic mapping breaks down. Most children with reading disabilities have a phonemic awareness deficit, which is why phonics alone is often not enough.

How Does This Affect Reading and Spelling?
• Slow, effortful reading with limited fluency
• Frequent re-reading and lack of comprehension (due to energy spent decoding)
• Poor spelling, especially for irregular words (“said,” “enough”)
• Difficulty learning high-frequency words (even ones that follow regular patterns)

How to Support Children with Orthographic Mapping Difficulties

The good news: this is a skill that can be strengthened—with the right approach.

1. Structured Literacy Instruction

This approach is:
• Explicit: No guessing; rules and patterns are taught directly.
• Systematic: Concepts build on one another in a logical sequence.
• Multi-sensory: Involves seeing, hearing, touching, and moving (e.g., saying sounds while writing letters in sand).

Orton-Gillingham, Wilson Reading, and Sounds-Write are examples of structured literacy programs that support orthographic mapping.

2. Focus on Advanced Phonemic Awareness

Beyond just rhyming or syllables, children need to:
• Add, delete, and substitute sounds in words
• Identify all the individual sounds in spoken words

Example activity: “Say ‘plant.’ Now say it without the /l/.” → “pant”

3. Repeated Reading of Decodable Text
• Helps reinforce mapping by practicing known sound patterns
• Builds fluency and confidence

4. Spelling Instruction That Supports Mapping
• Teach spelling rules explicitly (like why “ck” is used after short vowels)
• Encourage segmenting sounds before spelling (e.g., spell “ship” → /sh/ /i/ /p/)

Key Takeaway for Parents

A child struggling with orthographic mapping is not lazy or forgetful—their brain is simply wired differently when it comes to connecting sounds and letters into permanent word memory. With the right intervention, especially structured literacy, their reading brain can be rewired.

More Resources:
Books:
• “Overcoming Dyslexia” by Dr. Sally Shaywitz
• “Speech to Print” by Louisa Moats
Websites:
• Understood.org
• The Reading League
• International Dyslexia Association

Parenting Alongside You,

Dr. Emma and the Aparently Parenting Team

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Why Your Child Struggles to Remember Words: Understanding Orthographic Mapping and Reading Disabilities

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