SSP Teachers are going to need a bigger box:-)
sut could be pronounced 108 ways, for example. Readers know this.

Might the recent list of DfE validated Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programs prevent advancements in technology that could more effectively meet the needs of young readers in KS1?
Should the DfE reconsider their stance, to be more SoR informed with regards to facilitating differentiation through innovative technology?  

‘We are living in a digital world with technology transforming the way we live our lives – both at home and in the workplace. But we must never think about technology for its own sake. Technology is an enabler and an enhancer. For too long in education, technology has been seen as something that adds to a teacher’s workload rather than helps to ease’. (DfE 2019)

Increased accessibility to digital technologies in schools has meant that teachers have been provided with alternatives to teaching that have paved the way for possible changes to their pedagogical practices (Hedberg, 2011). Teachers have described how digital technology can facilitate differentiated learning, and how it can “improve grades, retain students’ focus and even build the confidence of many children” (Williams, 2018) Within the Speech Sound Pics (SSP) Approach, used across Australia, digital technologies are used in reception classrooms to facilitate self-directed learning of lower order, “closed” knowledge; a practice that frees teachers to not only more easily track individual learning of target grapheme recognition and blending skills, but to spend time with individual children who might otherwise not get the 1:1 attention they need. Research results and teaching practice indicate that the best instruction is explicit, systematic, sequential, active, and engaging. Effective teaching emphasizes discovery and understanding and is aided by frequent opportunities to practise spelling, writing, and reading skills in meaningful contexts. The SSP technology offers this to the children, with the teacher taking on a supervisory role, able to step back and observe the learning journey of each child. 

Approximately 30 minutes per day, four days a week, is spent cumulatively learning the 90+ commonly used phoneme to grapheme correspondences within four (phonics) Code Levels, and 400+ high-frequency words that may include 1 or more correspondence not taught within the Code Levels. Code Level texts offer students practise blending the graphemes within meaningful text which, includes these high-frequency words. The children also write sentences using the code that they know and explore new correspondences. The aim is to finish Phase 2 around the middle of Year One, at which time children are in the ‘self-teaching’ phase (Share 1995). During this period children also explore the “complicated constellation of skills and knowledge that impact reading comprehension” (Cervetti et al.2020) The learning of basic phonics skills is covered within the daily half-hour routine, allowing for more time to be spent on comprehension strategy instruction, multifaceted language interventions, explicit instruction in key vocabulary, spelling strategies and text discussions. 
The first 3 or 4 weeks of term 1 are spent developing phonemic awareness, to be able to isolate, segment and blend the phonemes that they will map to graphemes to ‘kick-start’ the learning to read process in Phase 2. This early phase, even though only lasting a few days, is essential as the teacher uses activities to ascertain which children are at risk of reading difficulties and to get them thinking about and listening for the smallest sounds in spoken words. 
 
Learning the most common grapheme to phoneme correspondences is considered a constrained skill (Pfost, Hattie, Dörfler, & Artelt, 2014) given the closed, correct-or-incorrect nature of this knowledge. This knowledge of the alphabetic code is critical in the development of reading and spelling. Traditional drill and practice are an effective avenue through which to acquire and retain closed knowledge in memory (Joseph, Eveleigh, Konrad, Neef, & Volpe, 2012; Musti-Rao, Lo, & Plati, 2014. The SSP ‘Code Level video lessons’ provide a method of engaging learners in self-directed drill and practice, at their ‘Code Level’ and students then practice and consolidate skills with the SSP Spelling Piano app and work poster. This work poster is a plastic laminated A3 sheet that is written on with a whiteboard pen, and then rubbed off ready to be used the next day. Spaced repetition is utilised, with each student independently working through the four ‘Code Levels’ at their pace. A fully differentiated learning environment is made possible because of the technology; something that a teacher cannot do when teaching the whole class, or even within small group instruction. Indeed, it could be considered an ineffective use of teacher time when such a practice may be facilitated via other means (Musti-Rao et al., 2014). Within each Code, Level is a group of commonly used phoneme to grapheme pairings, and each Code Level word only consists of these combinations. For example, the Green Code Level only consists of graphemes s (s) a (æ) t (t) p (p) i (I) n (n) and words could therefore include sat, ant, tin, pin, Stan, Nan, pants etc
Children also use technology to learn the commonly used words alongside these commonly used graphemes. These high-frequency words often have one or more grapheme to phoneme correspondences not taught within the four Code levels. For example, the children might learn within the Green Code Level that the grapheme ‘a’ can represent the phoneme / æ/ but will need to also understand the different mappings required to read and write more complex sentences eg The ant was in a pan.   ði ænt wɒz ɪn ə pæn (IPA symbols) Using technology children can segment and blend Code Level and High-Frequency Words and consolidate blending skills using ‘Code level’ readers. Because of technology, they move through the grapheme teaching progression together, as a class, but everyone is learning at their pace – able to take the time they need to secure the required knowledge into long term memory.   

This is reflective of Stern (2014) and Flewitt et al. (2014) who submit that a benefit of using digital devices is that they can offer opportunities for self-directed, independent, and individualised learning within a visually appealing context.  Being able to work at their pace, knowing what they are learning and being able to evaluate their own progress leads to intrinsic motivation and learning outcomes. Self-regulated learning is known to have a strong positive impact on student achievement (Hattie, 2009).

Technology is also used within Phase 1, with 30 step by step lessons offered in the I Can Read Without You app; also bridging the gap between learning at school and in the classroom (parents can download the app) Children who lack phonemic awareness skills do not understand what letters represent. Because speech sounds are abstract in nature, this is a hard concept for children to grasp. Within the Speech Sound Pics (SSP) Approach this difficulty is overcome within Phase 1 using ‘Duck Hands, Speech Sound Lines and Numbers’ and the ‘Speech Sound Monsters’, which all have their own English Speech Sound. They sit together, from left to right, to build words. Children learn to ‘follow the Monster Sounds to say the word!’. These can also be used as Speech Sound Pictographs and embedded onto letters, showing children the ‘sounds’ the letter/s represent in each word. Because they do not ‘pair’ with letters until in a word this makes ongoing and cumulative learning of the written code easier, even when they move from commonly used phoneme to grapheme combinations to the whole code, as shown on their Speech Sound Wall.

Shallow (transparent) orthographies, also called phonemic orthographies, have a one-to-one relationship between its graphemes and phonemes, which is understandably easier to learn (and teach!) Within English there are numerous ways to represent each speech sound (eg 14 ways to represent the /s/ speech sound) and graphemes can represent numerous sounds (eg the letter s can represent at least 3 different speech sounds) These are displayed on the SSP Speech Sound Wall, within the Spelling Clouds. In opaque orthographies, such as English, spelling-to-sound correspondences can be very ambiguous (Frost, 2012)  Children with limited understanding of the meanings of the words of spoken language will be impaired in their ability to correctly pronounce words, even when only the commonly used combinations are used, for example, they may see /ow/ and fail to differentiate between the pronunciation of tow and town, even when the words are in context. They will be impaired in their ability to derive meaning from text, even for words they have correctly identified and pronounced.

Another benefit of using the SSP technology to teach phonics is that many teachers have not received training in phonetics or have the necessary understanding of the linguistic units of speech and print to be able to apply the designing differentiated teaching activities and give students corrective feedback. By observing the step-by-step lessons themselves, teachers are being taught the structure of the English writing system and its relationship to sounds and meaning. They learn the English speech sound system and develop a knowledge of morphemic patterns such as prefixes, suffixes, and roots, as well as knowledge of grammatical and text structures.
The school version of the app now includes training, however, teachers can even use the Speedy Six Spelling program lessons on the whiteboard, from the ICRWY school app, to check that they themselves understand the phoneme to grapheme mapping of the target words, and the universally accepted mapping, as seen when transcribing words using the IPA. Differences in pronunciation are discussed; dialectical differences add another dimension to the written code that is not discussed within commercial systematic synthetic phonics programs. With adequate knowledge, teachers can proactively address these issues.  Although there is a huge focus on teaching children phonics systematically, less attention has been paid to the issue of whether teachers, themselves understand how the sounds in spoken language map with the letters in words, and the theoretical and scientific underpinnings for understanding literacy development.  Teachers cannot teach well what they do not understand themselves (Moats 2009) The technology we are developing seeks to not only support all learners but also the learning needs of parents, carers, teacher aides and teachers. Some parents and carers may even learn to read alongside their children.

Data and feedback collected from SSP teachers suggest that this technology enables the children to learn more of the common ‘letter sounds’ in a shorter period of time than when the teacher was ‘teaching from the front’. Furthermore, they report that neurodiverse learners are more engaged while learning with technology. Teachers need to know where students are in their phonics learning so they can move them beyond this point. Providing “whole class” instruction is unlikely to accomplish this. None of the currently ‘validated systematic synthetic phonics program developers have included technology in this way. Guidance notes mandate that the program ‘be built around direct teaching sessions, with extensive teacher-child interaction and involve a multi-sensory approach. The programme should include guidance on how direct teaching sessions can be adapted for online delivery (live or recorded)
Also,  ‘Where computer-based resources are included, these should support or supplement direct teaching by the teacher, but not replace it.’ (DfE January 2022)

Due to the nature of the instruction, mandated to be predominantly teacher-led, it is unclear how the highest number of UK children will move from the grapheme-phoneme correspondences included in the programs, to read ‘authentic texts’. In 2018/2019 27% of children were unable to read at expected levels at the end of primary school. Could reading levels improve if the technology used by so many Australian teachers was used in the UK? Are the needs of the neurodiverse students in the class being met?

Only 85 or so of these GPCs are taught within the currently validated commercial programs, and only these are tested at the end of Year 1. A ‘print to speech’ ie ‘grapheme to phoneme’ approach is taken within commercial synthetic phonics programmes.  And yet, as observed by Moats ‘One of the most fundamental flaws found in almost all phonics programs, including traditional ones, is that they teach the code backwards. That is, they go from letter to sound instead of from sound to letter. Such programs disregard the fact that speech evolved at least 30,000 years before writing. Alphabetic writing was invented to represent speech; speech was not learned from reading. Following the logic of history, we should teach awareness of the sound system (phonology) and anchor letters to it. The print-to-sound (conventional phonics) approach leaves gaps, invites confusion, and creates inefficiencies.’

Children learning with the Speech Sound Pics (SSP) Approach learn the code from speech to print; they listen to the sounds in words and understand that the group of graphemes being learned will map for the words in that code level, but this might not occur within other words. That is, they understand that English has a deep orthography, but can learn about it systematically and logically, using the SSP technology.

As such, Australian Speech Sound Pics (SSP) teachers report that more children meet the expectation for ‘reading’ before the end of their reception year, rather than at the end of year 1, as they are not constrained by the instructional method expected by the DfE with regards to synthetic phonics. For example, a primary school using the Jolly Phonics synthetic phonics program in South Australia took part in the trial Phonics Screener Check in South Australia, and only 51% passed. They trialled this new ‘tech supported’ approach to teaching phonics and the following year 81% passed. In 2020 NAPLAN (standardized) testing the school had the highest performance score in the state (overall) ‘massive’ improvement over historical average (2015 – 2018), big improvement 2019 -2021 (no NAPLAN in 2020), in top 3 schools in the state for percentage of students in yrs 3 – 7 in High Bands for Reading. Spelling improvement is also shown  This use of technology to teach the common GPSs quickly seems worthy of further study.    
 
Another relevant finding by Hattie in his ‘Visible Learning’ research is that the proportion of teacher talk to listening needs to change to less talk and more listening and observing student learning. Most teachers do not perceive they are dominating lesson time with their talk, but they are, as is shown by video analysis and class observations. This ‘less teaching, more learning’ approach, used within the SSP Phase 2 routine, is an effective way to keep children engaged and on-task and because students move through the phonics learning more easily, teachers can devote more time to engaging children in tasks that require more open-ended, contextualized, higher-order thinking such as reading comprehension and writing skills.
As an observer of learning, they are also in a better position to recognise learning difficulties early.

Technology is used within a learning routine that seeks to help reception teachers, responsible for the academic, emotional, and social needs of young children with different background knowledge and interests in the same classroom and can ensure that foundational reading and spelling skills are developed for all. There is more time available for implicit learnings of the mappings of the orthography (i.e., how spellings are likely to be pronounced) with learning from explicit instruction that accelerates implicit learning. When integrated within a holistic literacy program, phonics applications such as the SSP I Can Read Without You (ICRWY) and SSP Spelling Piano apps can be used in classrooms to more effectively facilitate students’ independent, self-directed learning of letter-sound knowledge and may also offer a unique way to deliver teacher training;

In 2018, the Education Secretary called upon the technology industry to demonstrate support for “innovative teaching practices …backed up by evidence of the impact they are having on schools, colleges and universities” (Department for Education, 2018). We hope that this message does not conflict with the message also being given to UK teachers by the DfE with regards to how children should learn phonics. 

References
 

Cervetti, G.N., Pearson, P.D., Palincsar, A.S., Afflerbach, P., Kendeou, P., Biancarosa, G., Higgs, J., Fitzgerald, M.S., & Berman, A.I. (2020). How the Reading for Understanding Initiative’s Research Complicates the Simple View of Reading Invoked in the Science of Reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1), S161– S172. 
 

Department for Education, 2018. New technology to spearhead classroom revolution https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-technology-to-spearhead-classroom-revolution
 

Department for Education, 2019. EdTech Strategy marks ‘new era’ for schools https://www.gov.uk/government/news/edtech-strategy-marks-new-era-for-schools 

DfE Guidance: Validation of systematic synthetic phonics programmes: supporting documentation January 2022.

Flewitt, R., Messer, D., & Kucirkova, N. (2014). New directions for early literacy in a digital age: The iPad. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1-22.
 

Frost, R (2002) Towards a universal model of reading. Behav Brain Sci. 35(5):263-79.

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of 800+ Meta-Analyses on Achievement. London: Routledge.

Hedberg, J. G. (2011). Towards a Disruptive Pedagogy: Changing Classroom Practice with Technologies and Digital Content. Educational Media International, 48(1), 1-16.
 

Joseph, L., Eveleigh, E., Konrad, M., Neef, N., & Volpe, R. (2012). Comparison of the Efficiency of Two Flashcard Drill Methods on Children’s Reading Performance. Journal of Applied School Psychology, 28(4), 317-337.

Moats, L. C. (2009). Still wanted: teachers with knowledge of language. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 42 (5), 387-391.

Musti-Rao, S., Lo, Y. Y., & Plati, E. (2014). Using an iPad® App to Improve Sight Word Reading Fluency for At-Risk First Graders. Remedial and Special Education, 36(3), 154-166.
 

Pfost, M., Hattie, J., Dörfler, T., & Artelt, C. (2014). Individual Differences in Reading Development: A Review of 25 Years of Empirical Research on Matthew Effects in Reading. Review of Educational Research, 84(2), 203-244.

Share DL. Phonological recoding and self-teaching: sine qua non of reading acquisition. Cognition. 1995 May;55(2):151-218; discussion 219-26.
doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(94)00645-2. PMID: 7789090.

Stern, J. (2014). Digital classroom magazines: Design considerations for young learners. Paper presented at the CHI’14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2559206.2579412

Williams, C., 2018. Enter the classroom of 2018 [WWW Document]. App Store. URL https://itunes.apple.com/gb/story/id1427202128