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Making Words Stick: A Four-Step Instructional Routine to Power Up Orthographic Mapping
The average reader instantly recognizes 30,000 to 70,000 words—with no need to sound them out. How does that happen? Through a process called orthographic mapping. This book explains the process by which readers embed words into their long-term memories, and the instruction necessary to help K–5 students do just that. Teachers will learn how to connect decoding, encoding, and meaning through a four-step, research-based, classroom-tested routine that accelerates students’ abilities to lift words off the page and capture them in reading and writing.
160 pages, Paperback
Published May 20, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 15, 2025
I really enjoyed this book & found it very informative. It does a nice job explaining what exactly orthographic mapping is. I have found that hard to define or clearly understand in the past. It goes into detail the why (research behind the choices) and the how (activities to promote steps to orthographic mapping). The research is bite-sized, informative and in just the right spots. This is very readable without being boring or too research heaving.
It can hopefully 🤞 help solve the issue of kids not being able to remember words (read or spell) of phonics patterns they've been taught. Highly recommend for classroom teachers, as well as interventionists, reading specialists, and instructional coaches.
What I think is missing or questions I have after reading are:
-what is the recommended time frame for each teaching activity in the book
-I wish there were suggested word lists for phonics patterns, but those are not included
Still, I would highly recommend. I've liked several in the Scholastic Science of Reading in Practice series.
It can hopefully 🤞 help solve the issue of kids not being able to remember words (read or spell) of phonics patterns they've been taught. Highly recommend for classroom teachers, as well as interventionists, reading specialists, and instructional coaches.
What I think is missing or questions I have after reading are:
-what is the recommended time frame for each teaching activity in the book
-I wish there were suggested word lists for phonics patterns, but those are not included
Still, I would highly recommend. I've liked several in the Scholastic Science of Reading in Practice series.
August 7, 2025
entry level book for any educator to use with plain explanations the cross k-5 for solid routines that will enable students to appropriately map words.
January 22, 2026
Very useful for reading teachers and specialists, as well as for literacy tutors and trainers for people of all ages. Phonics are crucial since English is so hard to pronounce.
June 12, 2026
I went into this with slightly wrong expectations -- I thought it would be more about how to make (academic) vocabulary stick for K-2 kids. Instead it is about how to make phonics rules stick. So, eh, I'm kinda back where I usually end up with this kind of book: this should just be part of the phonics program you're using, not something a teacher needs to become an ad hoc curriculum writer on their weekends about. I continue to somewhat mystified by the teaching professions desire to constantly reinvent the wheel and build a custom curriculum all the time.
(And, in fact, the phonics curriculum I use has many of these things already built in, making this book a bit of a wash for me.)
Moving on: okay, so what if you're a classroom teacher using a subpar curriculum? Yeah, you could use this to supplement it. This book suffers a bit from the "it probably could have been an article" problem endemic in business and self-help and pop-psychology publishing. There's a preamble on "what is orthographic mapping" which was fine but I've read similar things in half a dozen books and another half dozen online articles at this point. There's a chapter on "high-frequency words" which makes the point -- pretty standard in all the modern phonics curriculums I've looked at -- that most words are actually just "partially" or "temporarily" irregular and we should focus on teaching decoding what we can instead of treating them as a black box.
So, again, stuff I've seen many times before.
The actual meat of the book is: when you're introducing a new word, phonic pattern, or possibly even morpheme pattern take a 4-step process. 1) See & say, 2) Segment & spell, 3) Study & suss out, 4) Search & stick.
All up it is a bit shy of 80 pages of the main content -- that's what you're really paying for and getting here, so you need to decide whether 80 pages is worth it at this price point for you.
For each step a number of possible activities are provided. You're supposed to pick one for each category, not use multiple, but rotate them every once in a while -- perhaps weekly -- to keep it fun for students. I have my doubts that students need that as much as teachers get bored doing the same thing but whatevers.
For each "grade band" (K-1, 2-3, 4-5) there are 15-20 total activities. A lot of them are going to be things you've seen before. "Count It, Map It" is "use an Elkonin box"; "Word Chain It" (self-explanatory); "Picture It" is "show them a picture of it" (e.g. for "bat" show them a bat); "See It, Say It, Clap It" is to clap for each syllable; "See It, Say It, Chin It" it to count chin drops for each syllable; "Word Ladder It" is use a word ladder; etc. The activity is provided and a sample teacher script is provided, which I generally like to see.
The different age bands occasionally re-use activities. "Hunt For It" -- read something and look for uses of the word/pattern/morpheme -- appears in all 3 bands, for instance. Not the end of the world but this is already a pretty slim book so the duplication cuts down even further on the truly "new" content.
Reservations about "this should just be in your curriculum" aside, I generally like this. A lot of the activities I'm pretty meh on given they are very slight variations on a theme. There are 4 different kinds of "do an action for each syllable": Jump It, Clap It, Chin It, and Scoop It. I'm not sure "Act It Out" works for that many things (and seems like doing charades for each word would need some pretty tight timeboxing!).
Despite all that whinging, I like the overall framework of the 4-step process. Though the activities in the book don't all map seamlessly onto a traditional "vocabulary word" many of them do, so you could use it even if you're trying to get Kindergartners to learn "muddy" from this week's picture book. If you are a tutor you this offers a menu of options. If your phonics curriculum is weak, you can supplement with this. If it is good but you're bored because it offers limited activities, this offers a few more to try.
I suppose my final rating is: I like this well enough but I'm not convinced there is really enough here to warrant "being a book". I know all about the things that push people to write books instead of articles (vastly more people will read this as a book than sitting in some journal or blog somewhere!) and this is kind of a perennial whinge about this kind of content. It doesn't help, though, that this has a list price from Scholastic of $36 USD.
(And, in fact, the phonics curriculum I use has many of these things already built in, making this book a bit of a wash for me.)
Moving on: okay, so what if you're a classroom teacher using a subpar curriculum? Yeah, you could use this to supplement it. This book suffers a bit from the "it probably could have been an article" problem endemic in business and self-help and pop-psychology publishing. There's a preamble on "what is orthographic mapping" which was fine but I've read similar things in half a dozen books and another half dozen online articles at this point. There's a chapter on "high-frequency words" which makes the point -- pretty standard in all the modern phonics curriculums I've looked at -- that most words are actually just "partially" or "temporarily" irregular and we should focus on teaching decoding what we can instead of treating them as a black box.
So, again, stuff I've seen many times before.
The actual meat of the book is: when you're introducing a new word, phonic pattern, or possibly even morpheme pattern take a 4-step process. 1) See & say, 2) Segment & spell, 3) Study & suss out, 4) Search & stick.
All up it is a bit shy of 80 pages of the main content -- that's what you're really paying for and getting here, so you need to decide whether 80 pages is worth it at this price point for you.
For each step a number of possible activities are provided. You're supposed to pick one for each category, not use multiple, but rotate them every once in a while -- perhaps weekly -- to keep it fun for students. I have my doubts that students need that as much as teachers get bored doing the same thing but whatevers.
For each "grade band" (K-1, 2-3, 4-5) there are 15-20 total activities. A lot of them are going to be things you've seen before. "Count It, Map It" is "use an Elkonin box"; "Word Chain It" (self-explanatory); "Picture It" is "show them a picture of it" (e.g. for "bat" show them a bat); "See It, Say It, Clap It" is to clap for each syllable; "See It, Say It, Chin It" it to count chin drops for each syllable; "Word Ladder It" is use a word ladder; etc. The activity is provided and a sample teacher script is provided, which I generally like to see.
The different age bands occasionally re-use activities. "Hunt For It" -- read something and look for uses of the word/pattern/morpheme -- appears in all 3 bands, for instance. Not the end of the world but this is already a pretty slim book so the duplication cuts down even further on the truly "new" content.
Reservations about "this should just be in your curriculum" aside, I generally like this. A lot of the activities I'm pretty meh on given they are very slight variations on a theme. There are 4 different kinds of "do an action for each syllable": Jump It, Clap It, Chin It, and Scoop It. I'm not sure "Act It Out" works for that many things (and seems like doing charades for each word would need some pretty tight timeboxing!).
Despite all that whinging, I like the overall framework of the 4-step process. Though the activities in the book don't all map seamlessly onto a traditional "vocabulary word" many of them do, so you could use it even if you're trying to get Kindergartners to learn "muddy" from this week's picture book. If you are a tutor you this offers a menu of options. If your phonics curriculum is weak, you can supplement with this. If it is good but you're bored because it offers limited activities, this offers a few more to try.
I suppose my final rating is: I like this well enough but I'm not convinced there is really enough here to warrant "being a book". I know all about the things that push people to write books instead of articles (vastly more people will read this as a book than sitting in some journal or blog somewhere!) and this is kind of a perennial whinge about this kind of content. It doesn't help, though, that this has a list price from Scholastic of $36 USD.
June 23, 2025
This is a great resource for teachers because the authors take various research and theories and make them easily accessible and applicable in the classroom. The focus is on the important distinction between orthographic mapping vs. memorizing sight words. There are quite a few ideas for systematic routines and protocols that can be used with readers at various phases of reading development. I would definitely recommend this book to teachers wanting to improve their practice.
December 29, 2025
I read this helpful book for professional development with Orton-Gillingham tutoring. It has great definitions, and divides the four steps for sight word development into various grade levels. It has practical and easy-to-follow activities to help students orthographically map words, making recall of words automatic for developing readers.
June 20, 2026
Always nice to do an educational book over the summer.. this one is for a class I am doing to help me be a better 3-5 grade interventionist.. loved what they were saying in this book and can see ways to incorporate their routine without getting myself into trouble when it comes to the big “f” word.. fidelity
October 8, 2025
This book is an excellent resource for a beginners guide to orthographic mapping especially as it pertains to teaching high frequency words. I can’t wait to implement some of the strategies provided in this book and have already shared it with a colleague.
May 23, 2026
This is a great manual and will definitely be helpful with supporting students in putting their minds on learning tricky words. I appreciate the resource pages in the back too; thank you for this usable resource.
August 7, 2025
4 stars
Very simple routines to ensure readers can become proficient and fluent in both reading and writing words. It should be very easy to use this book in teaching reading.
Very simple routines to ensure readers can become proficient and fluent in both reading and writing words. It should be very easy to use this book in teaching reading.
September 22, 2025
Wow!! Such a good book. I loved reading about the research and I loved that it has strategies you can use in your classroom and apply tomorrow! Amazing book! 💖
November 11, 2025
Don’t let the scholastic cover fool you - easy to read practical advice for reading teachers!
November 26, 2025
I think this will be my guide to small groups and adjusting and planning my instruction. Can't wait to get planning!!
December 1, 2025
This book is a great resource for elementary teachers, specialists, parents, and teacher aids with clear instructional routines with ideas and videos modeling how to use them.
February 19, 2026
easy to read and understand. love the given activities and instructional routines.
June 27, 2026
It really got me thinking about how teaching morphology can benefit any reader at any level! I definitely want to put this in my practice next school year.
July 8, 2026
This is a great and easy read with applicable strategies for orthographic mapping for K-5. I especially appreciate the “menu” of activities that make it easy to implement right away.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews