Word Garden
I haven’t yet curated the booklets for long vowels, but this overall base plan includes them in the upper half. (If you’re on a computer, you can click on the zoom tool in the upper right of the image. Full screen helps as well.)
Words in bold are in the top one hundred of a high-frequency word list compiled by Devin Kearns. You can see what a busy column the open vowels have in the upper right.
You can also see several columns that are largely desert. When I was first devising a matrix for CVC words, I thought about minimizing or excluding sounds that only rarely serve as closing consonants, such as the voiced TH of “bathe,” or the ZH of “beige.” But I realized they help support larger overall patterns within the map.
I also realized the map could be extended beyond CVC words—that words ending in consonant blends, such as “and” or “first,” could be filed under their inner consonant. That opens up a window on a fascinating set of patterns. Even multisyllabic words can be included, filed under their first stressed syllable. That means every word in English has a place on this map.