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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.
Assessing Grapheme Recognition and Blending in Children Who Cannot Reliably Respond Orally
Current statutory guidance in England is that non-speaking children do not take the Phonics Screening Check if they cannot give verbal responses aloud. They are not offered an alternative response format.
Phonics Reform England (PRE) sees this as a clear example of the problems created by a one-size-fits-all approach to phonics. Children who can demonstrate grapheme recognition and blending are excluded from the Phonics Screening Check solely because they cannot respond by speaking.
Just as we support the message behind Teach Us Too, we also support Test Us Too. Every child deserves the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, regardless of how they communicate.
Every Child Deserves the Right to Demonstrate What They Know
The purpose of the Phonics Screening Check (PSC) is to assess whether children can recognise graphemes and blend them to read unfamiliar words.
Yet the current guidance excludes children who are non-speaking or minimally speaking because they cannot produce a spoken response.
The Department for Education states:
"Pupils who are non-verbal or selectively mute are unable to participate in the check if they do not give verbal responses aloud in school. They may be able to identify the words but will not be able to demonstrate their knowledge by speaking the answers aloud."
This statement is deeply concerning.
The guidance acknowledges that these children may be able to identify the words. In other words, they may have the decoding skills the PSC is designed to assess. They are excluded not because they cannot decode, but because they cannot respond in the required way.
The PSC therefore measures spoken output, not solely decoding ability.
This means children who use eye gaze, AAC, partner-assisted scanning, pointing, switch access or other recognised methods of communication are denied the opportunity to demonstrate what they know.
Imagine excluding a child from a mathematics assessment because they could not hold a pencil, despite being able to identify every correct answer using eye gaze or a communication device. We would adapt the response method while assessing exactly the same mathematical knowledge.
Reading should be no different.
We should be assessing the underlying skill, not the child's ability to speak.
Because Emma Hartnell-Baker has demonstrated in Australia how every child can be assessed, regardless of whether they are able to produce phonemes and words, we demonstrate this below.
Non-speaking and minimally speaking children can absolutely demonstrate grapheme recognition and blending. The construct being assessed does not change. The assessment does not change. Only the method of responding changes.
In the following section, we show exactly how non-speaking and minimally speaking children can complete the Phonics Screening Check using alternative methods of response, ensuring that every child has the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of the alphabetic code.