What is
Speech-to-Print?

Speech-to-Print

Components

The speech-to-print approach to teaching reading focuses on connecting spoken language (speech) with written language (print). This approach emphasizes helping children understand how sounds in spoken words correspond to letters and words in written text.

​

There are several components: 

​

1. Phonemic Awareness: Children learn to recognize and manipulate the sounds (phonemes) in spoken language. For example, they might practice identifying rhyming words or segmenting words into individual sounds.

​

2. Phonics: Children are taught how letters represent sounds in written language. They learn letter-sound correspondences (e.g., "b" represents the sound /b/) and how to blend sounds together to read words.

​

3. Word Recognition: Through practice, children learn to recognize whole words quickly and accurately by sight, rather than having to sound out every letter. This builds fluency in reading. This happens through a process called orthographic mapping and is not accomplished by visually memorizing words (as is attempted when taught using flash cards).

​

4. Comprehension: Alongside decoding words, children are taught strategies to understand the meaning of what they read. This includes vocabulary development and understanding sentence and text structure.

​

5. Integration of Skills: All these skills—phonemic awareness, phonics, word recognition, and comprehension—are integrated so that children become proficient and fluent readers who can decode and understand written text effectively.

​

The speech-to-print approach is structured and systematic, guiding children from basic sound-letter relationships to reading fluency and comprehension. It helps bridge the gap between spoken language and written text, enabling children to read independently and understand what they read.