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Phonics Reform England: Not reading reform. Phonics reform. Improving phonics for the one in five at risk of struggling to read and spell.
If phonics and spelling are constrained skills, why wouldn’t we use tech to teach them well?
The question isn't whether technology or AI can replace teachers. It's whether teachers should still be spending most of their time teaching knowledge that technology can now teach accurately, consistently and at the moment of need.
The goal is to use technology for the constrained skills, such as phonics and spelling, so teachers have more time for the unconstrained work: talk, meaning, vocabulary, writing, comprehension, relationships and joy in reading.
If the DfE's ambition is for 90% of children to pass the Phonics Screening Check, why are we still expecting teachers to spend two years explicitly teaching the Core Code – the 100 or so grapheme-phoneme correspondences assessed through the PSC?
In Australia, amazing teachers demonstrated that around 90% of children could master the Core Code and around 400 common exception words before the end of Reception through technology-supported learning. Teachers assessed mastery, while technology took responsibility for much of the explicit teaching of the Core Code. That freed teachers to decide how best to use the additional time with their pupils, rather than repeatedly delivering the same constrained knowledge. So we already know what is possible, and are excited to share it!
That vision is still available today through the Speech Sound Pics® approach, the Core Code Club and the Monster Spelling Piano® app for tablets. Parents can use it at home, and teaching assistants or parent helpers can run Core Code Clubs so children learn to recognise, blend and spell words containing these Core Code correspondences.
We will be launching Core Code Clubs to demonstrate how children can work at their own pace, even in a hall with 100 children. Just 20 minutes a day is enough for most children to master the Core Code within a few months. This is one way to improve the outcomes children achieve within their synthetic phonics programmes and help schools meet the DfE's target of a 90% Year 1 Phonics Screening Check pass rate.
What if we shifted mindsets around 'technology'?
Every time AI in education is discussed, the conversation quickly turns to whether it will replace teachers.
I think we're asking the wrong question.
The first question should be:
What is the AI being trained to teach?
Not all learning is the same.
Reading the alphabetic code and learning conventional spellings are constrained skills. Unlike creative writing or literary analysis, there is a finite body of knowledge to master (Paris, 2005). English may be a complex alphabetic code, but it isn't an infinite one. Children don't need to invent spellings; they need to learn the conventional code that already exists.
So why are we expecting teachers to spend so much of their time on the constrained skills when technology can increasingly support them?
Current AI doesn't teach
Let's be honest.
Most AI spelling tools don't teach.
They simply replace the cognitive work by correcting the spelling.
That's no different from a spellchecker.
If all AI does is provide answers, I share the concerns many educators have.
But that's because we're asking the wrong thing of AI.
The real opportunity
For years, I've been developing code mapping technology that allows learners to say a word and immediately see how speech maps to print, using the IPA and the alphabetic principle as a shared system.
Instead of simply showing the correct spelling, it makes the phonemes, graphemes and their connections explicit, helping to build orthographic knowledge by bonding speech, print and meaning (Ehri, 2014).
That's teaching.
The AI isn't the expert.
It delivers the expertise it has been trained on.
That's why the important question isn't whether AI should teach phonics and spelling.
It's who trained the AI.
Parents and teachers need support too
Children ask about unfamiliar words all day long.
Some fall outside the phonics programme.
Some contain grapheme-phoneme correspondences that haven't yet been taught.
Some are simply unusual.
Parents and teachers shouldn't be expected to calculate the code for every unfamiliar word instantly.
Research has repeatedly shown that many teachers have not been given deep linguistic knowledge of the alphabetic code during their training (Moats, 1994; Washburn et al., 2016).
That isn't a criticism of parents or teachers.
It's a criticism of the system.
Having trained more than 10,000 teachers myself, I know how difficult many find accurately mapping unfamiliar words beyond the programme sequence. I think it's one of the reasons phonics programmes have become so popular. They provide a carefully sequenced pathway through the Core Code, with the mapping already worked out for the teacher. That reduces planning, supports consistency and gives teachers confidence. But phonics programmes only teach the Core Code. Children quickly encounter words that sit beyond the programme sequence, and that's where teachers need secure knowledge of the alphabetic code itself, not just the programme.
Imagine if, instead of guessing or reaching for Google, teachers could use technology that immediately showed the correct speech-to-print mapping while simultaneously explaining it.
Now there are three learners.
The child.
Their parents.
And the teacher.
Every interaction becomes word mapping training and development.
Children already want to learn this way
Whether we like it or not, today's children are growing up with technology.
Many are highly motivated to learn through interactive digital experiences.
During my work in Australia, children learnt the Core Code through video-based instruction before demonstrating mastery with their teacher.
Technology didn't replace the teacher.
It freed the teacher.
The teaching of constrained knowledge via spaced repetition happened efficiently, allowing classroom time to be used for practice, application, discussion and individual support.
Let's free teachers to teach
The purpose of technology isn't to replace teachers.
It's to support them.
If technology can help children master the Core Code more quickly...
If AI can accurately explain unfamiliar words at the exact moment they're encountered when reading or writing...
If teachers can deepen their own understanding while using it...
Why wouldn't we use it?
Every minute spent repeatedly delivering constrained knowledge is a minute that can't be spent listening to children read, developing language, building vocabulary, inspiring writing, supporting wellbeing or nurturing a love of books.
Those are the things only great teachers can do.
The future
I don't believe AI should replace teachers.
I believe it should replace unnecessary repetition.
Let technology teach the constrained skills.
Let teachers do what humans do best.
The future isn't human or AI.
It's expert knowledge, delivered through technology, freeing teachers to focus on the parts of literacy that no machine will ever replace.
References
Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5–51.
Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling Memory, and Vocabulary Learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5–21.
Moats, L. C. (1994). The Missing Foundation in Teacher Education: Knowledge of the Structure of Spoken and Written Language.
Moats, L. C. (2020). Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers (3rd ed.).
Paris, S. G. (2005). Reinterpreting the Development of Reading Skills. Reading Research Quarterly, 40(2), 184–202.
Share, D. L. (1995). Phonological Recoding and Self-Teaching: Sine Qua Non of Reading Acquisition. Cognition, 55(2), 151–218.
Washburn, E. K., Binks-Cantrell, E., Joshi, R. M., Martin-Chang, S., & Arrow, A. (2016). Preservice Teacher Knowledge of Basic Language Constructs in Canada, England, New Zealand, and the United States. Annals of Dyslexia, 66, 7–26.