Decoding Chart

Note: The Decoding Chart - Flip and Decoding Chart - Levels apps have the guide button on their first page. Pressing the button takes you directly to the same guide for using the 14 apps that is on the Center website Home page. To return to the app, reopen the app directly.

Before the Decoding Chart
Before introducing the child to either the Decoding Chart - Flip or Decoding Chart - Levels apps, the teacher or parent should read the instructions for the Writing Worksheets app. The instructions there teach the adult the use of the decoding chart so the adult can then teach the child.

Transitioning
The decoding chart converts words written in sounds to words written in letters.  It is the vehicle for transitioning the child from sounds to letters.  Its use is introduced once the child can comfortably read and write phrases.

Sound Spellings
The chart contains the pictures of all 44 sounds arranged in the same rows and in the same order within each row as they are in the Stamping app.  Beneath each sound picture are various ways that sound may be spelled.  Some sounds may be spelled several different ways, while others are spelled a single way.  For example, can be spelled seven different ways, while offers only one spelling option.  The spellings listed beneath each sound appear in order of frequency of occurrence in the words which beginning readers are most likely to encounter.  The sound for example, is spelled more frequently with an 'f' as in food than it is with a 'ph' as in phone.

Color Coding
Each of the spellings that appear beneath the sound pictures are color coded.  The first spelling of each sound is coded white.  If a second spelling is listed, it is coded yellow.  Third spellings are red, fourth spellings are blue, fifth are green, sixth are brown, and seventh are purple.  The color codings indicate to the child which spelling is to be used to write the letters for a word.

Not Every Spelling
The decoding chart does not contain all possible spellings for each sound.  It does, however, contain the spellings that appear in ninety-five to ninety-eight percent of the words the child will encounter while learning to read and write.

Practice Before Beginning
The two Decoding Chart apps are designed to let the child practice use of the chart before beginning the Writing Worksheets.

Much More Convenient
While the apps can also be used by the child when he or she is writing letter spellings for the Writing Worksheet sounds, it is much more convenient for the child to have a paper printout of the chart for reference.

The decoding chart may be downloaded and printed out using the Decoding Chart Download link at the top of this page

The Two Decoding Chart Apps

Decoding Chart – Flip
The Decoding Chart - Flip app presents two practice worksheets for each of the five levels of the program. Two for the triangle-level, two for the circle-level, and so on. For each worksheet, pressing the flip button flips the worksheet to that portion of the decoding chart that is to be used for the spellings at that level.

The two heart-level worksheets give the child practice in writing the yellow spellings for the vowels a, i, o and u.

Decoding Chart - Levels
The Decoding Chart - Levels app is not what it appears to be. In 2012 version of the 14 apps, this app consisted of just the single Decoding Chart button that now appears at the top of the Home page. Pressing that button produces the original app - the decoding chart available in fives different configurations, one for each of the program's five levels.

When the same app was submitted in 2020, it was rejected because it was too simple. To make it less simple, we simply added two worksheet pages for each of the five levels from the Writing Worksheets app. The original purpose of the app was to make the decoding chart available for use by the child just one level at a time. The present version does the same thing with a few extras thrown in to make it seem less simple.

Apart from the child's using the app's practice worksheets, this app can be used to create an iPad screen capture for each of the five pages of the decoding chart to be printed out for the child's reference when using the Writing Worksheets app.