For struggling readers, whether they are identified with a learning disability or not, the process of orthographic mapping is an essential piece of the puzzle. In this post, you’ll learn about a specific type of struggling reader and how promoting orthographic mapping can help them develop effective strategies and set them on the path toward successful reading.
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According to David Kilpatrick in his book Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties, dyslexia, hyperlexia, and mixed reading difficulties have “withstood the test of time in terms of research validation.” He explains that “these common types of reading problems occur across various disability categories… as well as with non-designated weak readers.”
Kilpatrick also includes “the compensator” as a type of weak reader. I had an aha moment when I read about compensators because it described a profile I was seeing often as I evaluated Title I students who were being taught with a three-cueing program.
What is a compensator?
Compensators are children who develop ineffective reading habits to try to “get by” and then plateau later on. They tend to have strong language skills but their reading comprehension skills are not where you would expect them to be based on their language skills. Their word reading skills may be even lower than their comprehension skills, yet their comprehension and word reading skills are still within the average range so these kids tend to fly under the radar until they hit a wall, often around third grade.
How does a child become a compensator?
Are you ready? Because this is important!
If we push children to read before they develop the pre-requisite letter/sound and phonemic awareness skills necessary for effective orthographic mapping, then we risk creating compensators.
I’m talking about forcing kindergarteners to memorize random lists of “sight words” and using arbitrarily-leveled books that expect kids to read phonics patterns they have never been introduced to. It’s not developmentally appropriate and it nudges kids toward using ineffective strategies.
Instead of being able to match letters and sounds to orthographically map words for long-term immediate retrieval, compensators develop less effective strategies for reading words.
The ineffective strategies might include memorizing words by sight with visual memory or over-relying on context and illustrations.
What’s the Typical Profile of a Compensator?
First, the compensating child’s reading comprehension is average but it is surprisingly lower than their language skills and/or overall intelligence.
The reason their reading comprehension does not align with their language comprehension or their overall intelligence is that reading requires so much effort.
A compensator’s cognitive effort is maxed out by the effort of reading the words instead of the work of comprehending the words.
Next, a compensator’s spelling weaknesses may be more apparent than their reading weaknesses.
It is harder for a compensator to hide their weaknesses in written language because spelling is more complex than reading.
How is spelling more complex than reading?
When spelling, children must rely on orthographic recall, which doesn’t come easily if orthographic recognition is not well-developed.
Are these two terms confusing? Orthographic mapping occurs at two levels. Read on…
- Orthographic Recognition allows the child to read the word by recognizing the familiar letter strings.
- Orthographic Recall/Memory is the memory for the precise letter order of words, which helps the child spell the word.
How can we identify compensators?
You might assume that compensators do not have any underlying weaknesses in foundational skills because their reading comprehension is decent. You might not think to assess their phonemic awareness because it’s such an early skill to develop.
However, if you were to assess their phonemic awareness, you might be surprised. (Psst… The Phonological Awareness Skills Test is available for free!)
You may also discover poor letter-sound skills because they have been memorizing words as whole units instead of mapping the letter-sound connections.
Remember that “letter-sound skills” doesn’t just refer to single vowels and consonants. It includes longer letter strings like –igh and –ew.
So, if you think you know a compensator, consider assessing their phonemic awareness skills as well as their decoding skills, preferably with a nonsense word assessment rather than an assessment with real words.
Why assess with nonsense words?
Assessing with nonsense words will give you a more accurate picture of the student’s decoding skills because the student has not had a chance to memorize the nonsense words. They will have to use letter-sound knowledge and decoding skills. I recently wrote about the benefits of assessing nonsense word reading skills in older readers, if you’d like to read more.
Need a nonsense word assessment?
I’ve got you covered! My nonsense word decoding assessment covers the phonics skills that are typically taught in kindergarten through grade two and is organized by syllable type to help you know where to begin your instruction.
What can we do to help compensators develop more effective orthographic mapping skills to make reading less laborious?
- They absolutely should be participating in structured literacy lessons as opposed to balanced literacy lessons.
- They may need to improve their phonemic awareness skills.
- They likely need to break their “bad habits” and help them relearn how to approach words. This includes learning to rely less on context and illustrations and more on the letters in the words.
- They may need to develop more letter-sound skills. (Remember what this means!)
Using Look-Alike Words to Break the Guessing Habit and Promote Orthographic Mapping
When I read Equipped for Reading Success in 2021, I learned about using look-alike words to help students break the habit of guessing words based on the initial sound and context clues. The goal of studying look-alike words is not to memorize the words presented but to develop the habit of word analysis. I began using the strategy with my own students and eventually polished it up to create a resource that helps you implement teacher-directed look-alike word study.
According to Kilpatrick, studying words that appear similar will train your students to carefully analyze words instead of using compensatory strategies. You don’t even need to purchase anything to complete a teacher-directed look-alike word study: write three similar words on the board (e.g. of, from, and for; though, thought, and through) and ask questions about the letter/sound connections. Students will begin to make connections between each sound within a word and the letters that represent those sounds.
These habits are essential to the process of orthographic mapping, which is what helps students retain words in long-term memory for efficient retrieval, which is a fancy way of saying that words become known by sight.
Need more direction with using look-alike words?
I can help! My look-alike word resource can be used with your earliest readers to teach them effective strategies from the beginning, and it can be used with older readers who need to reverse their reliance on compensatory strategies. The words are organized by complexity and cover all six syllable types. There are also several pages of commonly confused high-frequency words.
You may have seen other look-alike word activities that children can complete independently by matching words to pictures. However, this still has an element of leaving the child to their own devices to use ineffective strategies. With teacher-directed look-like word activities, your questioning will guide students to make the connections you want them to make, which can accelerate the orthographic mapping process. And don’t worry, it can take as little as five minutes a day! Quick, daily practice will help word analysis become a habit. If you’re not sure what questioning strategies to use, I will teach you the direct mapping technique!
What is Direct Mapping?
Direct mapping is a technique used to help students make connections between the individual sounds within words and the corresponding letters. The teacher asks questions that will help students develop essential skills for successful word recognition. Through the direct mapping process, students will:
- practice segmenting and isolating phonemes
- develop the habit of studying the entire word instead of looking at the first letter and making a guess
- learn to rely on the regular letter-sound connections to decode, which takes the mystery out of many high-frequency words, particularly ones with irregular elements
- be encouraged to orthographically map letter strings. The letter strings may include portions of a word or the whole word.
Next Steps
I hope all of this information helps you feel prepared to recognize and support the compensating readers you are working with! If you want to learn more, consider purchasing one or both of David Kilpatrick’s books: Equipped for Reading Success and Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties. There are so many bookmarked and highlighted sections in my copies!
