What are phonemes, and why are they important? Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in spoken English. There are about 44 of them, though

If your students’ reading is improving but their spelling is still lagging behind, it’s time to introduce S.M.A.R.T. Spelling. S.M.A.R.T. Spelling is a simple, structured way to teach spelling. It breaks spelling into five key skills that are taught one at a time, in a clear and logical order. Students are shown how to think about spelling, not just guess or memorise.

Segmenting is the foundation of skilled spelling—and for students living with dyslexia, it’s the skill that needs the most structure, repetition, and support. At its core, segmenting means breaking a word into individual sounds (phonemes), then matching each sound to a spelling choice (grapheme).

Spelling isn’t just about sounds—it’s also about meaning. English is a morphophonemic language, we use letters to represent both sounds (phonemes) and meaning (morphemes) if we don’t teach students about morphemes, they are missing out on half of the story of English!

Vowel sounds in English are one of the biggest challenges in spelling. The same sound can be spelled in many different ways—and sometimes, letters don’t sound like themselves at all. This part of S.M.A.R.T. helps students think strategically about vowel sounds, instead of guessing or giving up.

There’s some debate around the value of teaching spelling rules where it’s believed that too many “rules” can overload working memory and in some cases this is true. But from the perspective of a struggling learner, the picture looks different. S.M.A.R.T. isn’t about memorising rules for the sake of it.