Word Courses

The second track of courses in Pictures Are For Babies introduces the student to single words. Starting with simple words, continuing through all one-syllable words, multi-syllable words, morphologically complex words, and ending by covering common words for many academic subjects, the word courses cover over 18,000 unique words. This level of coverage is unprecedented in a literacy program, where most other options cover up to a second or third grade reading level. Managing this level of complexity is only possible thanks to Trane, the deliberate practice engine that powers Pictures Are For Babies.

Another difference from other literacy programs is the emphasis on orthographic mapping, the process by which readers store words for immediate, effortless retrieval¹. This set of words is called a sight vocabulary and spans tens of thousands of words in fluent readers.

To accurately follow the principles of orthographic mapping, the tutor is asked to only mark an example as correct if the student can read the word quickly and automatically, without hesitation. A good rule of thumb is that the student should correctly read the word in less than one second. If the lessons were to give students more time, it would allow them to read the word by sounding it out, which is a part of the process of learning new words, but by itself does not support the goal of building a sight vocabulary.

The second feature that sets the word courses apart is the use of tiered interventions. These interventions directly address the fundamental mechanisms of orthographic mapping. Tier 1 is simply explicit instruction on the letter-sound mappings of the word. Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions are more complex exercises that target the most common and well-established causes of reading difficulties. By having a tiered intervention system, students receive the most appropriate level of instruction for individual lessons. It is recommended that tutors read the commentary sections, as they provide full explanations on the choices made in the design of these courses and the science behind them.

Note: In the instructions, the symbols inside slashes are part of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and unambiguously represent sounds. It is not necessary to learn the IPA, it is used here to make the difference between letter names and sounds clear. Their meaning can be inferred from the example words provided.

The general procedure for word courses is as follows:

• Each lesson contains multiple examples, which start as hidden. The tutor first looks at the lesson header to check if the lesson is a Reading or Dictation lesson.
• For reading lessons:
  • The tutor clicks on the first example to reveal it and shows it to the student.
  • The student should quickly and automatically read the word. If the student does so, the tutor clicks on the "✗" button to mark the example as correct, which turns into a "✓".
    • Students should be instructed to say "I don't know" if they do not know how to read the word. The tutor should make it clear that this is not a problem but a part of the learning process.
  • Repeat this process for all the examples in the lesson.
  • After the student goes through all the examples, the tutor performs an intervention. Refer to the intervention sections below for selecting the correct intervention and instructions.
• For dictation lessons:
  • The tutor clicks on the first example to reveal it and reads it aloud to the student.
  • The student should quickly and automatically write the word on a piece of paper, notebook, or some other writing surface. If the student does so, the tutor clicks on the "✗" button to mark the example as correct, which turns into a "✓".
    • Students should be instructed to say "I don't know" if they do not know how to write the word. The tutor should make it clear that this is not a problem but a part of the learning process.
    • This is not a handwriting course. If the student is too young to write by hand, they can use one of the following alternatives:
      • Spell out the words to the tutor verbally and have the tutor write them down. For example, the student can say "c-a-t" for the word "cat" or "uppercase T-o-m" for the word "Tom".
      • Write on a table or computer keyboard.
      • Write using a stylus on a tablet or phone.
  • Repeat this process for all the examples in the lesson.
  • After the student goes through all the examples, the tutor performs an intervention. Refer to the intervention sections below for selecting the correct intervention and instructions.
• Examples should be marked as correct even if the student does not know the meaning of the word. If they are curious about the meaning, the tutor can explain it to them. Tutors can use pictures if that helps with comprehension. For example, if the word is "elephant", the tutor can show a picture of an elephant. The prohibition against pictures applies only to explicit instruction on how words are read and spelled.

Tier 0 Intervention🔗

If the student correctly reads or writes all the examples in the lesson, no intervention is needed. The tutor can move to the next lesson immediately.

Tier 1 Intervention🔗

Tier 1 intervention is simply explicit instruction on how the words the student missed are read and spelled. The procedure below is done for each of those words. It is not necessary to do this for the words the student read or wrote correctly.

There are two stages for this process. First, the tutor demonstrates how the word is broken up into individual sounds and how those sounds blend together to form the word. This stage is done without any reference to writing. It is a purely auditory exercise that could be done with eyes closed. The second stage is to show how the word is written and how the letters map to the sounds.

The first stage develops basic phonemic skills called segmentation and blending and is done as follows:

• The tutor should instruct the student to avoid looking at the screen, notebook, or any other writing surface.
• The tutor says the word out loud, clearly and at a normal pace.
• The tutor then asks the student to repeat after them.
• The tutor then breaks the word into its individual sounds, saying each sound clearly and slowly. Each sound should be clearly heard, including consonants. The easiest way to do this is to say the word in a slow, continuous, and exaggerated manner. The speed should be roughly three or four times slower than normal speech and there should be no pauses between individual sounds.
  • Consonants should be pronounced without adding an extraneous vowel sound at the end. For example, when saying the letter 't', the tutor should say /t/ and not 'tuh' (/tə/).
  • Sometimes it is not possible to do this without stopping because some sounds like /b/ and /d/ require a pause to be clearly heard. In those cases, the tutor should make the pause as short as possible.
• The tutor then asks the student to repeat after them.
• The tutor then blends the sounds together by saying the word again, this time at a slower pace than normal speech, but without exaggerating the sounds.
• The tutor then asks the student to repeat after them.

The second stage delivers explicit instruction on the grapheme-phoneme mappings of the word, that is, how the letters in the word map to the sounds that were shown to the student in the first stage. This is done as follows:

• The tutor instructs the student to look at the Pictures Are For Babies screen where the word is displayed.
  • The tutor can also write the word on a writing surface of their choice if they think it will help the student.
• The tutor goes through the word. For each letter in the word, the tutor says the name of the letter and then the sound it makes in the word. For example, when going through the word "cat", the tutor would say "the letter c makes the /k/ sound" and so on for the other letters.
  • When a group of two or more letters is used to represent a single sound, the tutor should point that out by saying the names of all the letters in the group and then saying the sound that the group makes. For example, in the word "ship", the tutor would say "the letters s and h make the /ʃ/ sound".
  • When a single letter makes more than one sound, the tutor should point that out by saying the name of the letter and then saying all the sounds that the letter makes. For example, in the word "box", the tutor would say "the letter x makes the /k/ and /s/ sounds".
  • When a letter is silent, the tutor should point that out by saying the name of the letter and then saying that it is silent. For example, in the word "knife", the tutor would say "the letter k is silent" and "the letter e is silent".
• In the very beginning, before students master the first two symbol courses, they may not be familiar with all the letters by their names. Fortunately, all the words they are shown at that stage are simple. The tutor can simply point to the letters and say the sound they make without involving the letter names. Later, when the student learns all the letter names, the tutor can start using them in the procedure.
• If the lesson is a dictation lesson, the tutor should also have the student write the word a few times after going through the above steps. Two or three times should be sufficient.

Once the tutor has gone through the full procedure for all the words the student missed, the intervention is complete and the tutor can continue with the next lesson.

Here are some examples of how to do the full procedure with a few different words:

• Using the word "cat":

  • The tutor says "cat" and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says /k/...-/a/.../t/ slowly and fluidly and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says "cat" at a slightly slower pace than normal and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor points to the word "cat" and says:
    • "the letter c makes the /k/ sound"
    • "the letter a makes the /æ/ sound"
    • "the letter t makes the /t/ sound"

• Using the word "ship":

  • The tutor says "ship" and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says /ʃ/.../ɪ/.../p/ slowly and fluidly and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says "ship" at a slightly slower pace than normal and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor points to the word "ship" and says:
    • "the letters s and h make the /ʃ/ sound"
    • "the letter i makes the /ɪ/ sound"
    • "the letter p makes the /p/ sound"

• Using the word "take":

  • The tutor says "take" and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says /t/.../eɪ/.../k/ slowly and fluidly and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says "take" at a slightly slower pace than normal and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor points to the word "take" and says:
    • "the letter t makes the /t/ sound"
    • "the letter a makes the /eɪ/ sound"
    • "the letter k makes the /k/ sound"
    • "the letter e is silent"

The procedure works for any word. It is not necessary that the word follows simple phonetic rules. In fact, the procedure does not require any knowledge of rules or technical terms like "long vowel", "silent e", or others. This is not only aligned with the principles of orthographic mapping, but also makes the tutoring role accessible to anyone without such knowledge. The tutor simply goes through the sounds and letters of the word as they are. The reasoning is fully explained in the commentary section. Here are more examples with words that do not match simple rules and more complex words.

• Using the word "have":

  • The tutor says "have" and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says /h/.../æ/.../v/ slowly and fluidly and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says "have" at a slightly slower pace than normal and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor points to the word "have" and says:
    • "the letter h makes the /h/ sound"
    • "the letter a makes the /æ/ sound"
    • "the letter v makes the /v/ sound"
    • "the letter e is silent"

• Using the word "straight":

  • The tutor says "straight" and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says /s/.../t/.../ɹ/.../eɪ/.../t/ slowly and fluidly and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says "straight" at a slightly slower pace than normal and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor points to the word "straight" and says:
    • "the letters s and t make the /s/ sound"
    • "the letter r makes the /ɹ/ sound"
    • "the letters a and i make the /eɪ/ sound"
    • "the letter g is silent"
    • "the letter h is silent"
    • "the letter t makes the /t/ sound"

• Using the word "discredit":

  • The tutor says "discredit" and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says /d/.../ɪ/.../s/.../k/.../ɹ/.../ɛ/.../d/.../ɪ/.../t/ slowly and fluidly and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says "discredit" at a slightly slower pace than normal and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor points to the word "discredit" and says:
    • "the letter d makes the /d/ sound"
    • "the letter i makes the /ɪ/ sound"
    • "the letter s makes the /s/ sound"
    • "the letter c makes the /k/ sound"
    • "the letter r makes the /ɹ/ sound"
    • "the letter e makes the /ɛ/ sound"
    • "the letter d makes the /d/ sound"
    • "the letter i makes the /ɪ/ sound"
    • "the letter t makes the /t/ sound"

The procedure is even the same for words borrowed from other languages.

• Using the word "anime":
  • The tutor says "anime" and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says /æ/.../n/.../ɪ/.../m/.../eɪ/ slowly and fluidly and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor says "anime" at a slightly slower pace than normal and has the student repeat.
  • The tutor points to the word "anime" and says:
    • "the letter a makes the /æ/ sound"
    • "the letter n makes the /n/ sound"
    • "the letter i makes the /ɪ/ sound"
    • "the letter m makes the /m/ sound"
    • "the letter e makes the /eɪ/ sound"

Tier 2 Intervention🔗

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken language. It is a critical skill for reading and writing, as it allows students to understand how sounds map to letters and to efficiently store words in long-term memory for quick retrieval. Deficits in these abilities are the most common cause of reading difficulties, which is why Tier 2 intervention consists of exercises that explicitly target them.

After the student has answered a lesson multiple times, the following warning message will appear if their performance indicates a phonemic awareness deficit:

If the student performs poorly on this exercise, consider providing a Tier 2 intervention to detect and correct deficits in phonological awareness. See the manual for detailed instructions.

If after asking the student to read or write the examples in the lesson, the student still misses more than a couple of examples, the tutor should perform a Tier 2 intervention. The procedure is as follows:

• The tutor starts by performing the Tier 1 intervention for each of the words the student missed.
• After that, taking the words in the lesson as a starting point, the tutor performs several of the following exercises. All the examples should be done orally, without any reference to writing. The student should be instructed to avoid looking at the screen, notebook, or any other writing surface.
  • Substitution: These exercises involve asking the student to say what a word would sound like if a specific sound were replaced with another sound.
    • The tutor takes a word from the lesson and says it out loud, then asks the student, what the word would become if one of their sounds were changed to another sound.
      • For example, the tutor says "cat", then asks "Change /t/ with /n/. What word do you get?"
      • The student should answer "can".
    • If the student answers correctly, the tutor moves to another exercise.
    • If the student answers incorrectly, the tutor breaks down the word into its individual sounds, like in the Tier 1 intervention, and then repeats the question.
      • For example, the tutor says /k/.../æ/.../t/ slowly and fluidly. Then asks "Change /t/ with /n/. What word do you get?"
    • If the student answers incorrectly again, the tutor provides the answer and moves to another exercise.
  • Deletion: These exercises involve asking the student to say what a word would sound like if a specific sound were removed.
    • The tutor takes a word from the lesson and says it out loud, then asks the student, what the word would sound like if one of their sounds were removed.
      • For example, the tutor says "stake", then asks "Remove the /s/ sound. What word do you get?"
      • The student should answer "take".
    • If the student answers correctly, the tutor moves to another exercise.
    • If the student answers incorrectly, the tutor breaks down the word into its individual sounds, like in the Tier 1 intervention, and then repeats the question.
      • For example, the tutor says /s/.../t/.../eɪ/.../k/ slowly and fluidly. Then asks "Remove the /s/ sound. What word do you get?"
    • If the student answers incorrectly again, the tutor provides the answer and moves to another exercise.
  • Reversal: These exercises involve asking the student to say what a word would sound if all the sounds were reversed. This is a more advanced exercise that should only be done a fraction of the time. Most of the time, the tutor should focus on substitution and deletion exercises. Reversal exercises should only be done for simple words, as reversing more complex words is very difficult and sometimes impossible.
    • The tutor takes a word from the lesson and says it out loud, then asks the student, what the word would sound like if all the sounds were reversed.
      • For example, the tutor says "name", then asks "What word do you get if you reverse the sounds?"
      • The student should answer mane (/meɪn/).
    • If the student answers correctly, the tutor moves to another exercise.
    • If the student answers incorrectly, the tutor breaks down the word into its individual sounds, like in the Tier 1 intervention, and then repeats the question.
      • For example, the tutor says /n/.../eɪ/.../m/ slowly and fluidly. Then asks "What word do you get if you reverse the sounds?"
    • If the student answers incorrectly again, the tutor provides the answer and moves to another exercise.
• In substitution and deletion exercises, the tutor should make sure that they pick a variety of positions to change or remove, not only the first or last sound. For example, in words like "abide", "straight", or "trample", tutors should ask the student to change or remove the middle sounds as well.

The exercises should primarily focus on the words from the lesson. It is not necessary that the result of substitution, deletion, or reversal exercises is a word from the lesson or even a real word. The goal is to develop the student's phonemic awareness, not to teach them new words. As their phonemic awareness improves and their sight vocabulary grows, the tutor can expect that the need for Tier 2 interventions will decrease.

The tutor should conduct around five or six exercises in total, mixing substitution, deletion, and reversal exercises. Once those are done, the intervention is complete and the tutor can continue with the next lesson.

Below are additional examples of how to run the exercises with a few different words.

• Using the word "robbery" and a substitution task:

  • The tutor says "robbery" and asks "Change the /b/ sound to /p/. What word do you get?"
  • The student should answer "roppery" (/ˈɹɑpəri/). This is a made-up word, which is fine for this exercise.
  • If the student answers incorrectly, the tutor says /ɹ/.../ɑ/.../b/.../ə/.../ɹ/.../i/ slowly and fluidly and asks the same question again.
  • If the student answers incorrectly again, the tutor provides the answer and moves to another exercise.

• Using the word "antique" and a deletion task:

  • The tutor says "antique" and asks "Remove the /k/ sound. What word do you get?"
  • The student should answer anti (/ænˈtiː/).
  • If the student answers incorrectly, the tutor says /æ/.../n/.../t/.../i/.../k/ slowly and fluidly and asks the same question again.
  • If the student answers incorrectly again, the tutor provides the answer and moves to another exercise.

• Using the word "nap" and a reversal task:

  • The tutor says "nap" and asks "What word do you get if you reverse the sounds?"
  • The student should answer "pan".
  • If the student answers incorrectly, the tutor says /n/.../æ/.../p/ slowly and fluidly and asks the same question again.
  • If the student answers incorrectly again, the tutor provides the answer and moves to another exercise.

Tier 3 Intervention🔗

Most students will respond well to the Tier 2 intervention, as it targets the most common causes of reading difficulties. Based on the most successful interventions for reading difficulties, only 5-10% of students will need a more intensive intervention. In Pictures Are For Babies, the Tier 3 intervention provides more practice of advanced phonemic skills and includes multisensory support to help the student focus and stay engaged. In addition, Tier 3 intervention should be done on a 1-on-1 basis. This is not an issue for most students, since Pictures Are For Babies is designed to be used in a 1-on-1 tutoring setting. However, if the tutor is working with a group of students, they should make sure students receive some level of individual attention during Tier 3 interventions.

If the student continues to struggle with a lesson, the following warning message will appear:

If the student performs poorly on this exercise, consider providing a Tier 3 intervention to detect and correct deficits in phonemic awareness and include additional multisensory support. See the manual for detailed instructions."

If after asking the student to read or write the examples in the lesson, the student still misses more than a couple of examples, the tutor should perform a Tier 3 intervention. The procedure is as follows:

• The tutor starts by performing the Tier 1 intervention for each of the words the student missed.
  • The tutor performs the segmentation and blending exercises as described in the Tier 1 intervention section. If the student struggles to follow along, the tutor can repeat a few times. No multisensory support is used at this stage because the goal is to develop phonemic skills, which are auditory in nature.
  • The tutor can introduce additional multisensory support when teaching the letter-sound mappings similar to those used when introducing individual symbols. See the Symbol Courses section for more details.
  • If the lesson is a dictation lesson, the tutor should also have the student write the word down a few more times than during the normal Tier 1 intervention. Five times should be sufficient.
• Then perform the same procedure as the Tier 2 intervention with a few differences:
  • The number of exercises is increased to around ten or twelve.
  • The tutor introduces multisensory support by using some type of token to represent each of the phonemes in the exercises. The token can be a physical object, like a coin. Ideally, the tokens have multiple colors to make it easier for the student to follow along.
    • Tutors can make their own tokens out of colored paper, cardboard, or other materials.
  • When performing the exercises, the tutor arranges the tokens in a line in front of the student. When a phoneme is substituted, deleted, or the whole word is reversed, the tutor arranges the tokens accordingly. This step helps the student visualize the sounds and lower the cognitive load of tracking the sounds in their head.

Below are some examples of how the tokens are used in the exercises. Circle emojis are used to represent the tokens.

• Using the word "cat" and a substitution task:

  • The tutor arranges the tokens as follows: 🟠🟡🔵
  • The tutor says "cat" and asks "Change /t/ to /n/. What word do you get?" They substitute the last token with a different color token, like this: 🟠🟡🟢
  • The student should answer "can" (/kæn/).
  • If the student answers incorrectly, the tutor rearranges the tokens to the original order 🟠🟡🔵 and says /k/.../æ/.../t/ slowly and fluidly.
  • Then the tutor asks "Change /t/ to /n/. What word do you get?" and rearranges the tokens to 🟠🟡🟢 again.
  • If the student answers incorrectly again, the tutor provides the answer and moves to another exercise.

• Using the word "tramp" and a deletion task:

  • The tutor arranges the tokens as follows: 🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣
  • The tutor says "tramp" and asks "Remove the /t/ sound. What word do you get?" They remove the first token so that the tokens look like this: 🟡🟢🔵🟣.
  • The student should answer "ramp" (/ræmp/).
  • If the student answers incorrectly, the tutor rearranges the tokens to the original order 🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣 and says /t/.../r/.../æ/.../m/.../p/ slowly and fluidly.
  • Then the tutor asks "Remove the /t/ sound. What word do you get?" and removes the first token again.
  • If the student answers incorrectly again, the tutor provides the answer and moves to another exercise.

• Using the word "map" and a reversal task:

  • The tutor arranges the tokens as follows: 🟠🟡🟢
  • The tutor says "map" and asks "What word do you get if you reverse the sounds?" They rearrange the tokens to look like this: 🟢🟡🟠.
  • The student should answer "pam" (/pæm/).
  • If the student answers incorrectly, the tutor rearranges the tokens to the original order 🟠🟡🟢 and says /m/.../æ/.../p/ slowly and fluidly.
  • Then the tutor asks "What word do you get if you reverse the sounds?" and rearranges the tokens to 🟢🟡🟠 again.
  • If the student answers incorrectly again, the tutor provides the answer and moves to another exercise.

Commentary🔗

If you are familiar with other programs that teach reading, or you remember your own experience learning to read, you may have noticed that the word courses in Pictures Are For Babies are very different from traditional approaches. In particular:

• The courses require that the student reads and writes words quickly and automatically to mark exercises as correct. Sounding out a word is not sufficient.
• Although the tutor can use pictures to explain the meaning of words, they are never used in core instruction.
• Continued failure in a lesson triggers a tiered intervention system that has the student perform exercises whose utility is not immediately obvious.
• The tutor is not required to teach any phonics rules or to know any technical terms common in other programs, such as "long vowel", "silent e", or others. They simply go through the letters in the words and map them to their sounds.
• Spelling is integrated into the courses with dictation lessons. Failure to master the dictation lessons of a course blocks the student from progressing to the next course.

Rest assured, however, that these differences are not arbitrary. Rather, the courses are designed to follow the principles of orthographic mapping, the most important finding in the field of reading research, at least when it comes to reading at the word level. Most other programs, commercial or otherwise, ignore these principles because there is a vast and widespread gap between empirically validated research and the practice of teaching reading.

As was mentioned earlier, orthographic mapping is the process by which readers store words for immediate, effortless retrieval. The set of these words forms a sight vocabulary, which in fluent readers contains tens of thousands of words. The ability to read these words quickly and automatically is what allows fluent readers to dedicate their cognitive resources to understanding, interpreting, and enjoying the texts they read. Readers with a limited sight vocabulary, on the other hand, must devote a significant portion of their cognitive resources to reading individual words. This can happen even if they are taught decoding with a traditional phonics program.

Orthographic mapping also explains how fluent readers are able to efficiently build such a large sight vocabulary. The main driver of orthographic mapping in fluent readers is their phonological awareness, that is, their ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the sounds of spoken language. In particular, fluent readers have strong phonemic awareness, the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken language. By being able to quickly and accurately segment words into their individual sounds and map those sounds to letters, words are stored efficiently in long-term memory.

For example, when a fluent reader encounters a word that other reading programs would classify as "irregular" or a "sight word" (not in the sense of being in a sight vocabulary, but in the sense of having to be memorized as a whole), they are able to break it down into its individual sounds and notice that most of the sounds map to letters in a way that is consistent with their previous knowledge. Take the word "have" as an example. A traditional phonics program would teach that this word is irregular because the letter "a" does not make the "long a" sound as in "cake", but rather the "short a" sound as in "cat". A program based on lists of sight words would simply have the student memorize the word as a whole. The orthographic mapping of a fluent reader, on the other hand, stores only the second letter of the word as the sound-letter mapping that is inconsistent with their previous knowledge. Every other letter is effectively stored for free.

Given that the core processes that create fluent readers are phonological, and not visual, there is no empirical support for the use of pictures in core instruction. Pictures can be used to explain the meaning of words, but they do not help with the reading process itself. This is the insight that is captured in the title of this program: Pictures Are For Babies.

All phonics programs teach the letter-sound mappings of words in some way. This requires that students know how to segment words (break them down into their individual sounds) and blend sounds (put the individual sounds back together to form a word). If that is the case, why does Pictures Are For Babies claim that it is not enough?

The reason is that struggling readers often have deficits in phonemic awareness that prevent them from doing more advanced skills, such as substituting, deleting, or reversing sounds in words. These are the skills that are explicitly targeted in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions. Fluent readers, on the other hand, have strong phonemic awareness and can perform these advanced skills with ease. Reading interventions that do not address these deficits have modest effects at best. Interventions that teach phonics, allow for opportunities to practice reading, and explicitly train phonemic awareness to the advanced level have the strongest effects. These interventions have proven that 90 to 95% of students can learn to read at grade level with correct instruction.

These interventions use a tiered system to provide the most appropriate level of instruction. Tier 1 often consists of group instruction. Tier 2 consists of additional instruction that is provided for at-risk students, while Tier 3 consists of 1-on-1 instruction for students who continue to struggle. Because Pictures Are For Babies is primarily designed for 1-on-1 tutoring, the tiers are defined slightly differently. Tier 1 consists of explicit instruction on letter-sound mappings. Tier 2 consists of exercises that develop phonemic awareness to the advanced level. Tier 3 consists of more of those exercises with additional multisensory support.

The interventions that delivered the best results taught phonics. However, there are many ways to teach phonics, and not all of them have the same effectiveness. Some programs teach phonics by introducing a complex set of rules, with exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions. Most have tutors or trainers use technical terms like "long vowel", "silent e", or others. Fluent readers, however, do not use these rules when reading and often do not even know them. The rules are also not real, but rather a way to categorize statistical patterns of a language. When the pattern is so consistent that it can be considered a rule, repeated exposure to the words that follow that pattern is sufficient. When the pattern is not consistent, the rule is not helpful. In fact, it can be detrimental, especially to struggling readers, who are already using a lot of cognitive resources to learn how to read.

For that reason, Pictures Are For Babies does not use any phonics rules or technical terms. The tutor simply goes through the letters in the words and maps them to their sounds. Trane, the deliberate practice engine that powers Pictures Are For Babies, makes sure the lesson is repeated at optimal intervals. Not only is this approach more aligned with the principles of orthographic mapping, but it also makes the tutoring role accessible to anyone without any knowledge of phonics rules or metalinguistic terms like "long vowel", "silent e", or others. As long as the tutor is a fluent reader, they can perform segmentation, blending, substitution, deletion, and reversal to guide the student through the same procedures.

Orthographic mapping also explains why spelling should be integrated with reading in any literacy program. Spelling requires that the exact letter-sound mappings are used, so it helps track if the word has been deeply stored in long-term memory. Spelling practice reinforces reading skills, which in turn reinforce spelling skills. This is why Pictures Are For Babies has dictation lessons, and why progress to the next course is blocked until the student sufficiently masters the dictation lessons of the current course.

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