THE DfE RECOMMENDED SSP DEVELOPERS OMIT PHASE 1. HOW SOLID WAS THE EVIDENCE?

In 2021, the DfE recommended that synthetic phonics programmes seeking validation start with Phase 2, omitting Phase 1. The rationale was that starting phonics was “the best way” to develop phonemic awareness. But how solid was the evidence behind that position?

For decades, researchers have investigated whether phonemic awareness instruction is more effective with letters or without letters.

One finding in particular has been highly influential.
 

The National Reading Panel meta-analysis, subsequently published by Ehri et al. (2001), found stronger effects on reading when children manipulated phonemes with letters rather than without letters.

For reading outcomes, the reported effect size was 0.67 when phonemes were manipulated with letters, compared with 0.38 when they were manipulated without letters (Ehri et al., 2001).

This finding continues to be widely cited as evidence that phonemic awareness should be connected with print.

It also matters in England because, in 2021, the Department for Education produced guidance for publishers and systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programme developers seeking validation about the place of Phase 1 and pre-phonic phonemic awareness.

But later research complicates the picture.

And there is now another possibility that wasn't represented in these research comparisons:

What happens when children can see the phonemes without seeing the graphemes?
 

WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH ACTUALLY SHOW?

Ehri et al. (2001): stronger reading effects when letters were included
 

Ehri et al. (2001) published the meta-analysis of phonemic awareness instruction undertaken by the National Reading Panel.

Across the studies, phonemic awareness instruction had a large effect on phonemic awareness (d = 0.86) and moderate effects on reading (d = 0.53) and spelling (d = 0.59).

Of particular interest was what happened when letters were included.

For reading outcomes, the reported effect size was 0.67 when phonemes were manipulated with letters, compared with 0.38 without letters (Ehri et al., 2001).

There is a logical explanation for why letters might help.

Speech is transient. We say a phoneme and it's gone.

Letters provide concrete, persistent visual representations that children can see and manipulate.

But letters also provide something else:

Orthographic information.

When a child uses a letter or grapheme to represent a phoneme, the phoneme hasn't merely been made visible.

It has been represented through orthography.

Those aren't necessarily the same thing.

Rice et al. (2022): letter use wasn't a significant moderator

More than 20 years later, Rice et al. (2022) conducted another meta-analysis of phonemic awareness instruction.

Their analysis included 46 experimental and quasi-experimental studies, comprising 59 independent samples and 119 effect sizes.

Overall, phonemic awareness instruction had a moderate positive effect on phonemic awareness outcomes (g = 0.63).

However, the use of letters wasn't a statistically significant moderator of outcomes (Rice et al., 2022).

A subsequent correction concerned the coding of the group-size moderator analysis. The authors stated that this didn't change the interpretation or implications of the study (Rice et al., 2025).

So later evidence doesn't support a simple conclusion that adding letters necessarily produces better phonemic awareness outcomes.

Rehfeld et al. (2022): graphemes and children with reading difficulties

Rehfeld et al. (2022) examined phonemic awareness instruction specifically for children suspected of having a reading disability.

Seven databases were searched, 1,643 unique manuscripts were screened, and data were extracted from 138 included manuscripts.

Phonemic awareness instruction produced positive effects across several outcomes.

When grapheme use was examined, interventions incorporating graphemes produced an effect of g = 0.545 on composite outcomes, compared with g = 0.250 for interventions without graphemes (Rehfeld et al., 2022).

The authors concluded that graphemes should be incorporated into phonemic awareness instruction for this population.

SO, WITH GRAPHEMES OR WITHOUT THEM?

The evidence isn't as straightforward as the often-repeated “with letters is better” message might suggest.

Ehri et al. (2001) found stronger reading effects when letters were included.

Rice et al. (2022) found that letter use wasn't a statistically significant moderator of phonemic awareness outcomes.

Rehfeld et al. (2022) found larger composite effects from interventions incorporating graphemes for children suspected of having a reading disability.

These reviews involve different studies, populations and outcomes, so they shouldn't be treated as direct replications producing contradictory answers.

But collectively they show why a simple binary conclusion deserves closer examination.

And that matters because this wasn't only an academic debate.
 

IN 2021, THE DfE PRODUCED GUIDANCE FOR SSP DEVELOPERS SEEKING VALIDATION, AVAILABLE ON REQUEST

In 2021, as the DfE established its new validation process for systematic synthetic phonics programmes, it produced Letters and Sounds: An example progression, 2021: Including guidance for publishers and systematic synthetic phonics programme developers (Department for Education, 2021).

The document wasn't routinely issued to all developers but was available on request to those seeking guidance. The DfE was creating a new list of validated SSP programmes, which it stated would comprise complete programmes meeting its current guidance on best practice for teaching phonics in schools.

Although the DfE stated that the example progression wasn't mandatory and that there was no single “right” teaching order, this guidance was available to programme developers seeking validation within a system in which the DfE would determine which programmes appeared on its validated list.

Its recommended treatment of Phase 1 was explicit.
 

“PHASE 1 HAS BEEN OMITTED”

Under the heading “The former Phase 1”, the DfE stated:

“In order to ensure the necessary pace and progress, Phase 2 should be started at the beginning of Reception. This is consistent with other validated phonics programmes.”
 

It then stated:

“As Reception is the starting point for this revised programme, Phase 1 has been omitted. Those aspects of the former Phase 1 that are directly relevant to children’s phonics progress in Reception, particularly oral blending, should be incorporated into Phase 2 teaching.”

(Department for Education, 2021, p. 4)

These are the DfE's own words in its guidance for publishers and SSP programme developers.
 

WHY DID THE DfE RECOMMEND THIS?
 

The explanation immediately follows.
 

The DfE stated:

“‘Phonemic awareness’ – children’s ability to distinguish the separate sounds or phonemes that make up words – is a crucial skill underlying phonics and reading. However, phonemic awareness does not need to be acquired fully before phonics learning can start.”

It continued:

“In fact, the process of learning the phonemes in the early stages of a phonics programme strongly supports the development of phonemic awareness.”

And then made an even stronger statement:

“In this respect, children do not need to wait until they are ‘ready’ before they start learning phonics. Rather, starting to learn and practise phonics is the best way to develop young children’s awareness of phonemes and their ability to distinguish them.”

(Department for Education, 2021, p. 4)

These aren't our interpretation of the DfE's position. They are the Department's own words.
 

WHAT ABOUT NURSERY?

The DfE didn't recommend abandoning pre-phonic learning altogether.

Immediately after the passage above, it stated:

“Age-appropriate pre-phonic learning remains essential at the Nursery stage, and much of the former Phase 1 material may be useful for teaching these younger children.”

(Department for Education, 2021, p. 4)
 

It also acknowledged that some children might continue Nursery activities into Reception, but specified:

“these activities should be pursued in addition to Letters and Sounds teaching, not as part of it, or indeed in place of it.”

(Department for Education, 2021, p. 4)

So the recommendation wasn't that phonological or pre-phonic learning had no value.

The recommendation was that Phase 1 shouldn't form the starting phase of the Reception SSP progression. Phase 2 should begin immediately, with relevant elements of Phase 1 incorporated into it.
 

HOW SOLID WAS THE EVIDENCE BEHIND THAT POSITION?
 

This is the question we think is worth revisiting.

There are actually two different propositions here.

The first is relatively modest:

Children don't need fully developed phonemic awareness before they can begin learning phonics.

The second is considerably stronger:

“Starting to learn and practise phonics is the best way” to develop children's awareness of phonemes.

That second statement is an empirical claim.

There is research supporting the integration of letters and phonemic awareness, including the influential National Reading Panel findings reported by Ehri et al. (2001).
 

There is also later evidence supporting the incorporation of graphemes for some populations (Rehfeld et al., 2022).

But the evidence isn't unanimous.

Rice et al. (2022) subsequently found that whether letters were used wasn't a statistically significant moderator of phonemic awareness outcomes.

That doesn't demonstrate that the DfE was wrong.

But it does mean that the evidence can't be reduced to:

“Phonemic awareness is better with letters.”

And there is another problem.

The traditional comparison itself may now be incomplete.
 

WHAT IF PHONEMES CAN BE VISIBLE WITHOUT GRAPHEMES?

Historically, phonemic awareness without letters has generally meant that children hear, identify and manipulate speech sounds without a meaningful visual representation of the identity of each individual phoneme.

Counters, blocks and tokens can make the number and position of phonemes visible.

But they don't show the sound value.

A counter representing /m/ looks exactly like a counter representing /s/.

The phonemes themselves remain invisible.

Introduce letters and something changes.

Now the child has a stable visual symbol associated with the phoneme.

But the child has also been given orthographic information.

So two things have changed:

The phoneme has been given a stable visual representation.

And orthography has been introduced.

What if we could separate them?
 

PHONEMIES® MAKE SOUND VALUES VISIBLE

Phonemies® are visual representations of sound values.

They aren't letters.

They aren't graphemes.

They aren't pictures representing words beginning with particular sounds.

And they don't tell children which grapheme represents a phoneme in a particular word.

Each phoneme has a distinct visual identity.

So /m/ can be visually distinguished from /s/ without showing the child <m> or <s>.

Children can therefore see, identify, order and manipulate the phonemes in a spoken word without seeing its spelling.

The phonological information is visible.

The orthographic information isn't.
 

THERE IS NOW A THIRD CONDITION

The research question has traditionally been framed broadly as:

Phonemic awareness without letters

versus

Phonemic awareness with letters.

Phonemies® enable something different:

Speech → Visible Phonemes → Graphemes

This isn't traditional oral-only phonemic awareness.

It isn't the same as using counters or tokens because the visual symbols themselves represent specific sound values.

And it isn't phonemic awareness with graphemes because no orthographic information needs to be present.

The phoneme is visible. The grapheme isn't.

That condition wasn't isolated in the studies underpinning the with-letters/without-letters evidence.
 

SO WHAT PRODUCED THE ADVANTAGE WHEN LETTERS WERE USED?

This creates an important research question.

If children perform better when letters are present, what is producing that advantage?

Is it specifically access to orthography?

Is it because letters provide stable visual representations of otherwise transient phonemes?

Is it the combination of both?

Do different children benefit from different forms of support?

A comparison between phonemic awareness with letters and phonemic awareness without letters can't completely disentangle those possibilities.

Phonemies® give us the opportunity to investigate them.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
 

Reading and spelling ultimately require children to connect phonology and orthography.

We're not arguing against that connection.

But sometimes we want to know what a child can perceive and manipulate phonologically, without allowing their existing knowledge of spelling to provide the answer.

This is particularly relevant to assessment.

If graphemes are visible, existing orthographic knowledge may support the child's response.

Remove the graphemes, however, and we've traditionally also removed a meaningful visual representation of the individual phonemes.

Phonemies® allow those variables to be separated.

We can remove orthographic information without removing meaningful visual phonological information.

And then we can connect the two.
 

THE RESEARCH QUESTION HAS CHANGED

We can now ask:

Does making phonemes visually explicit, independently of graphemes, support phonemic awareness?

How does visible-phoneme instruction compare with oral phonemic awareness?

How does it compare with phonemic awareness using neutral manipulatives?

How does it compare with phonemic awareness using graphemes?

And what happens when children then explicitly map those visible phonemes to the graphemes in words?

We aren't claiming that existing research demonstrates that Phonemies® are superior.

It doesn't.

Phonemies® weren't one of the conditions being investigated.
 

That's the research gap.

THIS ISN'T AN ARGUMENT FOR DELAYING PHONICS
 

Phonemies® don't require children to complete a pre-phonics programme before encountering graphemes.

They can make phonemes visible before, alongside and independently of graphemes, according to what an individual child needs.

The goal remains the connection between speech and print.

But we no longer have to use print itself to make a speech sound visible.
 

FROM VISIBLE PHONEMES TO THE ALPHABETIC CODE
 

Once children can see the phonological structure, those phonemes can be explicitly connected with the graphemes representing them in words.

The mapping works in both directions:

phoneme → grapheme for spelling

grapheme → phoneme for reading.

Interestingly, the same DfE document explicitly recognises this bidirectionality:

“Because of the reversible principle of the alphabetic code, pupil’s [sic] need to be taught phoneme to grapheme correspondence as well as grapheme to phoneme correspondence.”

(Department for Education, 2021, p. 10)

The Phonemies® show the sound values.

The graphemes show how those sounds are represented in that word.

And children can connect the two.

A DECISION WORTH REVISITING?

In 2021, the DfE produced guidance available on request to SSP programme developers seeking validation.

Its example progression said:
 

“Phase 1 has been omitted.”

And its rationale included the claim:

“starting to learn and practise phonics is the best way to develop young children’s awareness of phonemes and their ability to distinguish them.”

(Department for Education, 2021, p. 4)

The evidence surrounding phonemic awareness and letters is more nuanced than a simple “with letters is better” conclusion (Ehri et al., 2001; Rice et al., 2022; Rehfeld et al., 2022).

And there is now something else to investigate.

We can make individual phonemes visible without showing graphemes.

That possibility wasn't isolated in the research informing the traditional with-letters/without-letters debate.

We don't need to choose between invisible sounds and letters.

We can make the sounds visible.
 

Then SHOW the Code.

For the first time, Phonemies® can also be used to assess phonemic awareness from age three because they allow us to check whether children can isolate, segment and blend phonemes regardless of whether they know any letters or can produce the sounds themselves. Please see Dys-Code.
 

REFERENCES

Department for Education. (2021). Letters and Sounds: An example progression, 2021: Including guidance for publishers and systematic synthetic phonics programme developers. Department for Education.

Ehri, L. C., Nunes, S. R., Willows, D. M., Schuster, B. V., Yaghoub-Zadeh, Z., & Shanahan, T. (2001). Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read: Evidence from the National Reading Panel's meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3), 250–287. https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.36.3.2

Rehfeld, D. M., Kirkpatrick, M., O'Guinn, N., & Renbarger, R. (2022). A meta-analysis of phonemic awareness instruction provided to children suspected of having a reading disability. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 53(4), 1177–1201. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_LSHSS-21-00160

Rice, M., Erbeli, F., Thompson, C. G., Sallese, M. R., & Fogarty, M. (2022). Phonemic awareness: A meta-analysis for planning effective instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 57(4), 1259–1289. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.473

Rice, M., Erbeli, F., Thompson, C. G., Sallese, M. R., & Fogarty, M. (2025). Correction to “Phonemic Awareness: A Meta-Analysis for Planning Effective Instruction”. Reading Research Quarterly, 60, e70005.