Segmenting

Also called Sound segmentation, Phoneme segmentation, Sounding out for spelling

Pulling a spoken word apart into its sounds so you can write it: ship is sh-i-p, three sounds, four letters.

What it is

Segmenting is hearing a word and breaking it into its individual sounds, in order. "Ship" has three: sh, i, p. "Strap" has five. It's the skill spelling depends on, because you can't choose letters for sounds you haven't isolated. It's the reverse of blending, and children often manage one before the other.

Schools sometimes teach it with "sound buttons" (a dot under each single-letter sound, a line under each digraph) or with fingers, one raised per sound. Both make the invisible visible.

Who it can help

Children from Reception onwards, and anyone learning to spell. Children who speak unclearly can still segment perfectly well, so unclear speech is not a reason to hold spelling back. Children with dyslexia usually find segmenting slow and effortful, and need it taught explicitly for far longer.

For non-speaking learners, segmenting is the skill that turns a keyboard into a voice. If you can hear "want" as w-o-n-t and find those keys, you can say "want" without anyone having put it on a board. It is worth teaching to every AAC user who can be taught it, and most can.

How it works

Segmenting develops in stages: first syllables (clapping "ba-na-na"), then the first sound of a word, then onset and rime ("c" and "at"), then every sound. Most children can segment simple three-sound words by around five, longer words with clusters by six or seven. Vowels are harder to isolate than consonants, and the middle sound is the one children miss most.

Spelling then needs a grapheme for each sound, and English gives a choice. So "rain" is segmented to r-ai-n correctly and might be written "rane"; that's a grapheme problem, not a segmenting one, and it's normal at five. Phonics programmes accept phonetically plausible spelling early and tighten it later.

Once a person can segment, the letter or phonics keyboard on the Talk board will speak whatever they build, so the feedback loop is immediate: type it, hear it, hear whether it sounded right.

Getting started

Use fingers. Say a word, then raise one finger per sound as you say them slowly. Get the child to do it with you. Start with words they can already blend.

Do it in real life. Writing the shopping list: "milk. m-i-l-k. What's first?" Let them write the sound they can, and you write the rest. Praise the sounds they got, especially the vowel.

For a non-speaking child, segmenting practice is keyboard practice. Say a word, they press the sounds, the board says what they made. If it comes out wrong they hear it and try again, and nobody has to correct them.

Where to get help

The class teacher and the school's phonics programme. The DfE's reading framework sets out how it's taught. The British Dyslexia Association for children who need more.