Letters and Sounds

Please let me know if the synthetic phonics programme you use have updated their content or GPC / HFW teaching order since the recommendation from the developer guidance from the DfE in 2021?

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Key Differences from the Original 2007 Letters and Sounds

1. Phase 1 removed from the progression (See Note 1)

The revised version starts directly with Phase 2 at the beginning of Reception.

The original 2007 version included a substantial Phase 1 focused on:

environmental sounds
rhythm and rhyme
alliteration
oral blending and segmenting
listening skills

The 2021 update says oral blending and phonemic awareness activities should still happen, but as part of Phase 2 teaching rather than as a separate preliminary phase.

2. Phase 6 removed

The original Phase 6 focused on spelling conventions, suffixes, tense endings, and spelling development.

The updated document removes Phase 6 entirely because it states this is "best considered spelling development rather than phonics."

The revised progression now ends with Phase 5.

3. Clearer term-by-term structure

The old version was less tightly organised by school terms.

The 2021 version explicitly structures teaching into:

Reception Term 1 = Phase 2
Reception Term 2 = Phase 3
Reception Term 3 = Phase 4
Year 1 = Phase 5

This creates a much faster and more tightly paced progression.

4. Faster pace of GPC teaching

The revised version expects:

approximately four new sounds per week (see Note 2)
built-in review weeks
mastery by end of Year 1

The original 2007 version was generally implemented more flexibly and often more slowly.

The new guidance repeatedly stresses pace and fidelity.

5. A structured Phase 5 sequence

One of the biggest changes.

The original Letters and Sounds introduced alternative spellings in Phase 5 but did not provide a clearly defined teaching order.

The 2021 update says explicitly:

“the intended order for teaching these was unclear”

The revised document therefore creates:

a fixed sequence
ordered by frequency and effective practice
half-termly progression for Year 1

This is probably the most practically significant change.

6. /nk/ added

The phoneme /nk/ was not included in the original progression and has now been added.

7. /ure/ removed

The original version included /ure/ as a taught phoneme-grapheme correspondence.

The revised version removes it because (they say):

“its occurrence amongst commonly encountered words is rare.”

Words such as sure and pure are now treated as common exception words instead.

8. Greater emphasis on reversible mapping

The revised guidance explicitly emphasises:

phoneme-to-grapheme mapping
spelling alongside reading
dictation
reversibility of the alphabetic code

For example:

“pupil’s need to be taught phoneme to grapheme correspondence as well as grapheme to phoneme correspondence”

This emphasis was much less explicit in the original 2007 document.

9. More explicit adjacent consonant teaching

The updated version clarifies that:

adjacent consonants are deliberately delayed until Phase 4
double consonants are introduced earlier
this is considered a defining feature of Letters and Sounds

The rationale is explained more clearly than in the original.

10. Common exception words reorganised

The revised version:

reduces early cognitive load
delays some tricky words
aligns them more closely with decodable text progression
incorporates National Curriculum CEWs not previously included

11. Stronger alignment with SSP validation

The 2021 update was written specifically to support:

SSP programme validation
English Hubs practice
DfE-approved programme development

The original 2007 version was guidance, not a validated programme framework.

Overall Shift

The updated progression moves Letters and Sounds:

away from flexible guidance
towards a tightly sequenced SSP framework

Compared with the original, the 2021 version is:

faster
more prescriptive
more systematically ordered
more aligned with validated SSP expectations
clearer about teaching sequence and review structure
more explicit about spelling and reversibility of mapping.

Key Differences from the Original 2007 Letters and Sounds

Actual GPC Changes Compared to the Original 2007 Letters and Sounds

Explicitly Added in the 2021 Update

The document itself only directly states a few additions:

1. /nk/

Added because it was missing from the original progression. (see Note 3)

Example:

nk → sink, trunk

2. More explicit teaching of double consonants

The original version included some double letters implicitly, but the update says:

“More specific coverage of some double consonants has also been added.”

Examples include:

These are now clearly sequenced in Phase 2.

Explicitly Removed

/ure/

Removed from the taught GPC progression.

Instead:

sure
pure

become common exception words.

What Actually Expanded Substantially

The 2021 update makes many alternative spellings and pronunciations much more explicit and systematically sequenced in Phase 5.

These were partly present in 2007, but often:

buried in notes
inconsistently taught
not sequenced clearly.

Examples of Phase 5 expansions made much more explicit

Multiple spellings for one phoneme

For example:

/ai/ (see Note 4)

ay
a
a-e
eigh
aigh
ey
ea

/ee/

/oa/

/or/

aw
au
aur
oor
al
a
augh
our
oar
ore

These alternative spellings now appear in a tightly prescribed order across Year 1.

The Bigger Difference

The major change is not simply “more GPCs”.

It’s that the revised version:

codifies the alternative code much more explicitly
sequences it term-by-term
expects systematic cumulative teaching
increases coverage clarity
removes ambiguity about order.

The old 2007 version often left schools deciding:

when to teach alternatives
which alternatives to prioritise
how much coverage was enough.

The 2021 progression standardises this much more tightly

Change to "Tricky Words"

The recommended improvements to Letters and Sounds includes changes both the terminology and the positioning of “tricky words” compared with the original 2007 version.

Rather than focusing on “high-frequency words” as a separate category, the document uses the term:

“Common Exception words” (CEWs)

while noting that these are:

“sometimes referred to as ‘tricky words’”

How the document defines Common Exception Words

The document states:

“Common Exception words … are frequently used words that, although decodable in themselves, cannot be decoded by children using the grapheme-phoneme correspondences they have been taught up to that point.”

This is important because:

the DfEt does not describe these words as non-decodable
instead, they are only “exception” words relative to the child’s current taught GPC knowledge.

It also says:

“Many of these words cease to be tricky in the later stages of SSP, as more alternative GPCs are learned.”

So the revised guidance is trying to frame “tricky words” as temporarily untaught mappings rather than sight words.

Strong warning against too many CEWs early on

The DfE explicitly warns that:

“learning them adds to young learners’ cognitive load and also disrupts the systematic approach of SSP.”

(See Note 5)

It therefore recommends:

“Common exception words should be kept to a minimum in the early stages.”

This is a stronger SSP position than many schools historically used with the old Letters and Sounds.

Emphasis on phonically decoding the tricky part

One of the most significant statements comes later:

“The important principle is that children must always be taught how to decode the ‘tricky word’ phonically before they are asked to read it independently.”

and again:

“children are taught how to decode any common exception words phonically before they are asked to read them independently.”

This explicitly rejects:

memorising whole words visually
guessing
treating words as unanalyzable sight vocabulary.

What changed from the original 2007 version

1. More SSP-consistent framing

The original Letters and Sounds often led schools to:

teach tricky words as visual wholes
encourage memorisation
use “look and say” approaches unintentionally.

The revised version tries to reposition them as:

decodable words with currently untaught correspondences.

2. CEWs linked more carefully to progression

The revised version says the original tricky words were:

“largely retained, with some additions”

and that:

“Those common exception words included in the National Curriculum, but not in the original version of Letters and Sounds, have now been incorporated.”

3. Pace adapted

The document states:

“The pace of learning of the common exception words has been adapted based on the experience of effective practice.”

So there is now:

tighter sequencing
fewer introduced at once
more review structure.

What the document does not explain clearly

Although the document insists CEWs should be decoded phonically, it does not explain:

exactly how teachers should identify the “tricky” part
how accent variation affects this
whether children should segment according to their own pronunciation
how teachers should decide which phoneme-grapheme correspondences are being treated as exceptions.

For example:

was
one
could
because

may be segmented differently depending on accent and phonological interpretation.

There is also little discussion of:

orthographic mapping
how temporary “exceptions” become fully mapped
the distinction between statistical irregularity and true irregularity.

Another important tension

The document argues that CEWs:

should be minimised
disrupt SSP
increase cognitive load

yet the revised progression still introduces substantial numbers of CEWs across Reception and Year 1.

This creates a tension between:

maintaining strict cumulative decodability
and
giving children access to meaningful connected text early on.

The guidance acknowledges this tension but does not fully resolve it pedagogically.

Notes from Emma Hartnell-Baker

Note 1

The suggested guidance to remove Phase 1 from the revised Letters and Sounds progression raises important concerns regarding the 1 in 5 children who begin Reception with weak phonemic awareness skills. The updated Letters and Sounds guidance states that Phase 2 should begin immediately at the start of Reception and that the former Phase 1 would been omitted. The DfE argues that phonemic awareness develops through phonics instruction itself and that children do not need to wait until they are “ready” before beginning phonics.

However, this position assumes a relatively even starting point that does not reflect the reality of many Reception classrooms. Large numbers of children arrive at school having had little or no structured phonemic awareness experience in Nursery. This is particularly relevant for children with:

speech, language and communication needs
dyslexia risk factors
developmental language differences
limited early literacy exposure
neurodivergent profiles.

For these children, removing Phase 1 rather than strengthening and refining it may increase disadvantage. Phonemic awareness is one of the strongest predictors of later reading and spelling success, and difficulties in perceiving, segmenting, and manipulating phonemes are widely associated with dyslexia risk. If approximately 1 in 5 children begin school with poor phonemic awareness, then moving immediately into formal grapheme instruction may leave many attempting to map print onto unstable or poorly differentiated speech sound structures.

The original Phase 1 was often criticised for lacking sufficient structure, precision, and assessment value. However, the solution to these weaknesses may not be removal, but improvement. An evidence-informed phonemic awareness phase can provide both:

explicit preparation for phoneme-grapheme mapping
early identification of children at risk of reading difficulty.

This is why the teachers Emma Hartnell-Baker supports in Australia (and a growing number in England) use the 10-day Speech Sound Play plan, with a focus on sounds s æ t p ɪ n (and the graphemes s a t p i n that can represent them, by day 5) as a more evidence-informed alternative to the original Phase 1. Rather than functioning simply as a collection of listening games, it provides:

structured phonemic awareness activities
explicit attention to speech sound discrimination
oral blending and segmenting
opportunities to observe children’s responses systematically.
a clearer transition to 'the pictures of the sounds' s æ t p ɪ n and how used to decode and encode words such as sat, spin, pan, tan, spits, nip

Importantly, the plan also acts as a whole-class screening tool for dyslexia risk and related literacy difficulties. Because all children participate, teachers can quickly identify those who struggle to:

hear phoneme contrasts
blend sounds orally
segment words into phonemes
hold sound sequences in working memory
connect speech patterns consistently.

This allows targeted support to begin early, before repeated reading failure occurs.

The suggested revised Letters and Sounds guidance acknowledges that some children may need continued Nursery-style activities into Reception, yet it offers little detail regarding how schools should identify these children or what effective phonemic awareness support should look like. There is also no discussion of how phonemic awareness differences relate to dyslexia risk, despite the strong research base connecting the two.

As a result, the removal of Phase 1 may unintentionally disadvantage the very children most likely to struggle with phonics instruction, particularly if schools interpret the guidance as meaning that explicit phonemic awareness work is no longer necessary. This conflicts with PRE Reform 1

Note 2

`In this document, “around four new sounds per week” actually means approximately four new grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs) per week, not four entirely new phonemes.

That wording is slightly misleading because:

sometimes a new grapheme represents a phoneme children already know
sometimes multiple graphemes map to one phoneme
sometimes one grapheme represents more than one pronunciation

For example, in Phase 5:

children may already know the phoneme /ai/
but they are taught a new grapheme for it such as:
- ay
- a-e
- eigh
- ey

So the “new sound” is often actually:

a new spelling for a known phoneme
or
occasionally a new pronunciation for a known grapheme.

The document itself frames the progression as:

“The progression of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs)”

and later says:

“Where new GPCs are initially being introduced, the intended pace is around four new sounds per week…”

So the terminology shifts between “sounds” and “GPCs,” even though the unit being taught is really the correspondence.

This matters because:

children are not learning only phonemes
they are learning mappings between speech and print
many of the Phase 5 items are alternative spellings, not new speech sounds.

For instance:

/ee/ → ee, ea, e-e, ey, ie, y
same phoneme
multiple graphemes.

So practically, teachers are teaching:

a new grapheme
linked to a phoneme
within a cumulative mapping system.

Note 3

The addition of /nk/ as a single taught unit in the suggested Letters and Sounds progression raises important questions about consistency with the Department for Education’s own guidance regarding phoneme-grapheme correspondences. The document states that “/nk/” has now been added to the progression, despite not appearing in the original version. However, from a phonemic perspective, words such as rink consist of four phonemes:

/r/ /ɪ/ /ŋ/ /k/

not three.

Treating “nk” as a single phoneme-grapheme correspondence risks obscuring the underlying phoneme structure of the word. This matters because phonics instruction is intended to support accurate segmentation and mapping between speech and print. If children are encouraged to treat “nk” as one sound, they may be less likely to recognise the separate phonemes /ŋ/ and /k/, despite these remaining distinct in speech production.

In the word kangaroo the graphemes are <k> <a> <a> <n> <g> <a> <r> <oo> with the <n> mapping to ŋ

The same issue applies to “qu,” which is frequently taught as though it represents a single sound unit. While its frequent co-occurrence in English orthography may make it pedagogically convenient to introduce early, words such as queen are more accurately segmented as:

/k/ /w/ /iː/ /n/

with the spelling:
q u ee n

This matters because the letter <u> contributes the /w/ sound, a correspondence children can later recognise in words such as penguin. Treating “qu” as an indivisible unit may therefore simplify early instruction at the expense of phonemic transparency and broader understanding of the alphabetic code.

These examples highlight a wider tension within SSP instruction between pedagogical convenience and linguistic accuracy. The revised progression appears in places to move away from a strict one-phoneme-to-one-grapheme principle, yet this shift is not explicitly discussed or justified within the document itself.

It is also unclear who specifically influenced these changes. The document refers generally to “highly effective schools in the English Hubs programme” and to an “expert panel” involved in validation, but there is little transparency regarding:

which experts were consulted
their linguistic expertise
the rationale for particular mapping decisions
how disagreements or alternative interpretations were evaluated.

This lack of transparency is significant given the national influence of validated SSP programmes. The revised progression aligns closely in places with practices seen in programmes such as Read Write Inc. and Little Wandle, particularly regarding units such as “nk” and “qu,” yet the document does not explain whether these programmes directly informed the revisions or how such decisions were evidence-based.

Concerns about transparency become more important when the suggested guidance introduces mapping conventions that may conflict with the underlying phoneme structure of spoken English. If phonics programmes are expected to provide a systematic and linguistically coherent account of the alphabetic code, then the rationale behind such departures from phonemic segmentation arguably requires clearer explanation and scrutiny.

Note 4

The example suggested revised Letters and Sounds progression would benefit from using International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols consistently to denote phonemes, because the current notation risks confusion between phonemes and graphemes.

At present, the DfE frequently labels a phoneme using ordinary letter strings such as “ai”, “ee”, or “oa”, even though these are also graphemes. This makes it unclear whether the document is referring to a sound or a spelling pattern. For example, Phase 5 presents “/ai/ ay play”, yet the symbol “ai” is itself an English grapheme that may represent different pronunciations depending on the word, such as plait or said. Using the IPA symbol /eɪ/ instead would remove this ambiguity and make clear that the target is the spoken phoneme rather than a specific spelling.

The issue becomes more significant when alternative spellings are introduced. In Phase 5, the intention is to teach multiple graphemes corresponding to the same phoneme. However, if the phoneme itself is represented using ordinary spelling conventions rather than IPA, the distinction between phoneme and grapheme becomes blurred. For instance:

/eɪ/ → ai (rain), ay (play), a-e (shake), eigh (eight)

is linguistically clearer than:

/ai/ → ai, ay, a-e, eigh

because the first format distinguishes the speech sound from its various orthographic representations.

Consistent IPA notation would also support greater precision in teacher subject knowledge. The document repeatedly refers to “sounds” and “GPCs” interchangeably, even though they are not the same thing. A phoneme is a unit of speech, whereas a grapheme is a unit of print. Using IPA would help maintain this distinction throughout instruction and reduce the risk of teachers inadvertently conflating the two.

Accent variation further strengthens the case for IPA.

The pronunciation a teacher associates with labels such as “ai”, “ar”, “or”, or “oo” may differ according to regional accent. For example:

the vowel in bath
the vowel in grass
the pronunciation of pure
the pronunciation of water

vary substantially across England and beyond.

Without a shared phonetic reference system, teachers may interpret “sounds” according to their own accent and instructional background. The revised progression does briefly acknowledge regional variation in a few places, such as could, father, and ask, but it does not provide any systematic guidance on how accent variation should be approached in phoneme-grapheme mapping instruction.

This absence is important because phonics instruction relies on identifying and segmenting phonemes accurately. If programmes use spelling-based labels instead of phonetic notation, and if no guidance is given regarding accent variation, there is a risk that teachers and learners may develop inconsistent understandings of the phoneme structure of words. IPA notation would provide a neutral reference point that separates speech from spelling and allows phoneme-grapheme correspondences to be discussed more precisely across different accents and dialects.

Note 5: Concern about teaching GPCs and high-frequency words together

A concern I have is the way the progression introduces new GPCs and common exception words within the same phase structure. The revised guidance defines common exception words as words that are frequently used but cannot yet be decoded using the GPCs taught up to that point. It also states that these words add to cognitive load and can disrupt the systematic approach of SSP. However, the progression still places new GPC teaching and common exception word teaching side by side within the same half-term blocks.

This creates a conceptual and instructional problem. If children are learning that <a> represents /æ/ in words such as ant and sat, while also being introduced to high-frequency words such as a, as, and I, they may be asked to process two different kinds of knowledge at once. One is the cumulative teaching of GPCs. The other is the mapping of very common words that may contain correspondences not yet taught, reduced vowels, unusual spellings, or mappings that cannot be explained using the current code level.

The concern is not that high-frequency words should be delayed indefinitely. Rather, they should be taught as mapped words in a separate strand, not treated as though they align neatly with the current GPC progression. The Spelling Routine page makes this point directly: GPCs and common exception words, tricky words, red words, or high-frequency words should not be taught together “as if they can be aligned”; instead, they should be taught separately.

This matters because high-frequency words carry a large amount of early reading and writing load. The same page argues that these words appear throughout the day, make up a large proportion of early text, and need to be secured early so children can use them in real reading and writing beyond controlled phonics sessions. If they’re tied too tightly to phonics phases, children may have to wait until enough of the programme has been taught before they can securely read and spell words they meet constantly.

There is also a cognitive load issue. In early Reception, children may still be learning to hear, blend, and segment phonemes. If they’re simultaneously expected to learn new grapheme-phoneme correspondences and memorise or partially decode high-frequency words whose mappings do not fit the current code, those at risk are placed under additional pressure. The Spelling Routine page gives the example of children learning s = /s/, a = /æ/, and i = /ɪ/, while also being introduced to words such as is, as, an, and I. It argues that, for many children, this is cognitive overload.

A clearer approach would be to separate the strands. Children will know that they are learning GPCs as part of thir phnics progamme, and other GPCs so they can read and write a wide range of words they need daily, without having to wait. High-frequency words should be taught through accurate word mapping, with children shown which letters form graphemes and what sound value they carry in that word. This allows children to secure words such as the, a, I, was, and said as meaningful, mapped words, rather than as visual wholes or as confusing exceptions within a code sequence. The Spelling Routine secures this knowledge. As seen here we are recommending Speedie Sight Word lists that align with the synthetic phonics programmes, but offer free resources that parents can use even if teacher hands are tied.

This distinction is especially important for the 1 in 5 children who struggle to establish phonemic awareness and orthographic mapping efficiently. If high-frequency words are not secured early and clearly, through word mapping where the code is shown, children are more likely to guess, avoid writing, or produce inaccurate spellings. If they’re mapped explicitly but taught separately from the current GPC sequence, they can support self-teaching rather than disrupting it.

Please ask about supporting and sharing data with The Speedie Sight Word Project.

Packaging Reading Development into a Deliverable Programme

A final concern is that the revised progression appears to prioritise classroom organisation, programme fidelity, and the tracking of what has been taught over both individual understanding and what we already know about how skilled readers and spellers actually develop proficiency. The framework is tightly structured around half-term pacing, cumulative lesson delivery, and whole-class progression expectations. While this undoubtedly supports consistency, commercial packaging, training delivery, and programme validation, it risks reducing reading development to a sequence that can be easily monitored, sold, and followed, rather than one built around the complex and highly variable process through which children internalise the writing system.

This matters because children do not become fluent readers and spellers simply by being exposed to a fixed sequence of taught GPCs at the same rate as their peers. Skilled reading develops through the gradual accumulation of orthographic knowledge across thousands of successful encounters with words, supported by secure phoneme-grapheme mapping and self-teaching processes. Children who read and spell with ease are not consciously working through a programme sequence once reading becomes established. They are rapidly building connections between speech, print, meaning, and morphology through wide exposure to text and repeated successful mapping experiences.

Yet the revised progression appears designed around the assumption that all children require broadly the same amount of explicit instruction, delivered in the same order and at the same pace, before they can progress. In practice, children’s literacy development varies enormously. Some require substantially more support with phonemic awareness, oral language, blending, segmentation, and phoneme-grapheme mapping before they can apply the alphabetic code securely. Others acquire the core code rapidly and become ready much earlier to explore a far wider range of mapped text and vocabulary than SSP programmes typically allow.

As an experienced classroom teacher, and someone who has trained over 10,000 teachers to map words througout the day, and mentored hundreds of Reception and Year 1 teachers to understand their students as individuals, I have seen another way of approaching early reading development. I have seen many children thrive when they are able to move beyond rigid programme pacing and begin exploring mapped, levelled readers earlier, supported by explicit word mapping tools that make grapheme-phoneme relationships visible within real words. This appears to strengthen:

self-teaching
orthographic learning
spelling development
confidence
intrinsic motivation to read.

At the same time, I have also seen children left behind because lesson pacing continued moving forward despite insecure phonemic awareness and unstable phoneme-grapheme knowledge. A system focused primarily on programme coverage can unintentionally obscure whether children have actually established the underlying speech-print mappings required for independent reading and spelling.

This issue becomes even more important when considering the approximately 100 core GPCs typically taught within SSP programmes. In Australia, our technology-is used to help children apply this core code flexibly while also accessing thousands of additional mapped words much earlier through supported word exploration. Children initially use code-level readers, with mapped HFWs, but once they demonstrate readiness, they are encouraged to investigate far richer text environments with mapping support eg through the Village With Three Corners (as seen on Speedie Readies). This appears to accelerate orthographic learning because children are no longer restricted to the relatively small pool of fully decodable words available within tightly controlled cumulative phonics systems.

The concern is that this broader understanding of evidence-informed practice is currently difficult to pursue within England because of how the Department for Education defines “evidence-based” practice and because of the criteria used to validate SSP programmes themselves. The validation framework appears heavily shaped by:

programme fidelity
cumulative decodability
standardised pacing
whole-class progression
tracking of taught content.

Less attention appears to be given to:

variability in learner profiles
neurodivergence
speech and language differences
orthographic mapping development
self-teaching processes
motivation
independent reading development beyond controlled text.

Much of the research underpinning DfE SSP policy is based on group averages, population-level outcomes, and theoretical frameworks such as the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986), which conceptualises reading comprehension as the product of decoding and oral language comprehension. Within this model, reading development is often interpreted as relatively sequential: children first learn to decode accurately through phonics instruction, and comprehension then emerges through the interaction between decoding skill and spoken language understanding.

While the Simple View has been highly influential in English literacy policy, other models place greater emphasis on the interactive and reciprocal nature of reading development. For example, the Active View of Reading (Duke & Cartwright, 2021) argues that reading is not simply the product of two separable components, but a complex process involving the continual interaction of:

decoding
language comprehension
vocabulary
executive functioning
background knowledge
fluency
motivation
active self-regulation.

Similarly, orthographic mapping and self-teaching theories emphasise that children develop reading proficiency through repeated successful encounters with words in meaningful contexts, gradually building highly interconnected networks linking speech, print, meaning, and morphology. Within these perspectives, reading development is not viewed as a simple linear progression from decoding to comprehension, but as a dynamic process in which multiple aspects of literacy develop together and influence one another continuously.

This distinction matters because a strongly sequential interpretation of reading can lead to instructional models in which children are kept within tightly controlled decodable systems until a predefined body of GPC knowledge has been mastered. In contrast, models that emphasise active, reciprocal, and self-teaching processes may support earlier exploration of richer mapped text environments, provided children retain access to phoneme-grapheme mapping support.

A population-level focus can also obscure important differences between learners. Average gains across cohorts do not necessarily reflect how programmes affect children with highly variable profiles, including those with dyslexia, speech and language differences, neurodivergence, or unusually rapid orthographic learning abilities. As a result, programmes validated as effective at system level may still fail to optimise reading development for substantial groups of individual learners.

This is why we are analysing SSP programmes through a different lens. Rather than asking only whether a programme aligns with validation criteria or produces average gains, we are examining:

which children it supports well
which children it disadvantages
how it handles phoneme-grapheme complexity
whether it supports orthographic learning and self-teaching
how it responds to accent variation and speech differences
how it affects confidence, motivation, and independent reading.

The goal should not simply be for children to complete a prescribed sequence of GPCs or pass the Phonics Screening Check. The goal should be to ensure that every child with the cognitive capacity to become an independent reader is supported to access meaningful, age-appropriate text confidently, fluently, and with enjoyment as early as possible.