Forms Codes and Grapheme Quick Reference

Forms curriculum uses codes that are synonymous with graphemes (written symbols) representing speech sounds.
Speech sounds = phonemes; phone names used in Forms refer to these sounds.
Example: spoken word /kæ t/ (cat) has three phonemes; written as graphemes C A T to represent them.
Goal: teach children that each written code (grapheme) maps to one or more phone names (sounds).

A code can represent one or more sounds; a superscript number above the code indicates which sound (1st, 2nd, etc.). If there is no number, it is the first sound.
Flash-cards and tapping: to decode a word, tap once per sound. Example: if a code represents 3 sounds (e.g., E a), tap 3 times; a single-sound code (e.g., L) is tapped once.
Each code corresponds to a specific sound or sound pattern as taught in the curriculum.

Consonant codes often have distinct first/second sounds (e.g., S: /s/ as in sun; second sound /z/ as in shoes).
Short vowels correspond to single, quick vowel sounds represented by single-letter codes.
Examples (illustrative, based on the lesson):
- C as in cat, S as in sun/shoes, M as in Matt, N as in no, J as in jam.
- These are treated as base codes for single sounds in many words.

Long vowels are typically shown with two or more letters making one sound (vowel diagrams).
Common long-vowel patterns include multi-letter spellings such as A_e (A with e), EE/EA (as in leaf/see), and other vowel combinations that yield long vowel sounds.
The lesson introduces long-vowel codes to help map spelling patterns to their single long-vowel sounds.

Certain codes involve a silent letter (often a letter that does not produce a sound in that position).
Examples mentioned in the session:
- Two-letter E as in right (silent or non-productive in that context in the slide).
- G in gnome and sign (silent G in those words).
- U described as a silent letter in some codes.
- Silent letters can appear at the start or end of a code/word.

Digraphs and clusters are two-letter or three-letter sequences that produce single sounds.
Examples discussed:
- Wh as in whack
- Sh as in ship
- Ph as in chef
- Th as in thin
- Ch as in catch
- Digraphs like ng in sign (velar nasal) and other blends.
The curriculum explains how these sequences are taught as codes to help early reading.

Some codes reflect affixes that alter the base word’s sound through morphology.
Example: suffix -tion yields a "sh" sound in many words (e.g., action). This is taught as a code to aid reading these words early.
Another example: suffix -al with base word face to form facial; a connecting vowel may appear (the lesson notes a brief discussion of this morphophonemic pattern).
The teaching approach uses these codes to help children recognize and read morphology without overemphasizing the underlying morphemes too early.

Use flash-card tapping to count sounds in a word; tap per sound, not per letter, when multiple sounds share a code.
Remember that some codes have multiple sounds; the superscript number indicates which sound to count first, second, etc.
Watch for long-vowel patterns (diagraphs and multi-letter spellings) as they often map to a single vowel sound.
Be aware of silent-letter codes (e.g., silent g in gn- words, silent e in some contexts) and how they affect decoding.
For morphology, recognize common suffixes like -tion and -al and the codes that teach their sounds (e.g., the "sh" sound in action).