[00:00:03.

890] - Naomi Hinton

Hello, and welcome to this session with Ann Sullivan, an SEND Literacy Consultant, author and trainer.
With over 30 years of experience in both mainstream and special education. Ann is the creator of Phonics
for pupils with special educational needs program and the Rainbow literacy resources. She has also
recently authored Access to Phonics practical Access strategies to teach children with complex needs of
all ages. Ann's passion for teaching has driven her to create Phonics for Sen, a website and a program
aimed at providing learners with special educational needs with the tools and resources they need to
succeed. We are absolutely delighted to have Ann here today to showcase her expertise in this field. So
please join me in welcoming Ann Sullivan, over to you Ann.

[00:01:02.550] - Ann Sullivan

Thank you. That's wonderful introduction. I'll just share my slides for you now. So, as Naomi said, I'm the
author of Phonics for pupils with special educational needs, which is known as phonics for sen. It's not the
most jaunty title that you'll ever have. It doesn't trip off the tongue easily. I blame it all on the editor of the
book. I was going to call it Something Completely Different, and she insisted that it had this rather long
name because she said everything was driven by Google searches. So that's my excuse. But I'm here
today to tell you a little bit about the program and what I do, and just to stress that Phonics for Sen is
written for pupils with special needs or additional needs, depending on which part of the world you are in
different terminology. And there are seven core books that make up the program. It was published by
Routledge in 2018, and it's used in schools across the UK and also in Australia. I'm very pleased to find
that I have some colleagues from Australia who are very interested in the program. So, Phonics for Sen is
a complete phonics program for teaching pupils with moderate, severe and complex needs to read and
spell.

[00:02:30.410] - Ann Sullivan

So, it's more than the usual mild sen that you kind of get in mainstream schools. And it's designed to be
accessible for pupils with a range of needs, including the ones that you can see on the screen. The
design and the structure of the main body of the program has tailored materials that are specifically
designed to be accessible for pupils with sen, but in a kind of general sense, really. But it also provides
additional strategies, which some pupils with more complex needs usually require for access to any part
of the curriculum, but particularly phonics. And I'm thinking particularly of those students who are pre or
nonverbal, who are non-speaking and those with physical disabilities. So, Phonics for Sen is well
structured, and we could describe it as being systematic phonics because it's so well structured. It starts
from teaching the very simplest of elements of reading and spelling and moves towards the more
complex, the more advanced aspects. As the pupil moves through the program. It could be described as
synthetic phonics because it teaches from the bottom up with words built by combining the smallest
elements of words, be it spoken phonemes or written graphene.

[00:03:56.950] - Ann Sullivan

But I think primarily I describe it as a linguistic phonics program, greatly influenced by Diane McGinnis,
her work, and, of course, the kind of prototype that she set out in early reading instruction. And of course,
it focuses on that typical linguistic phonics trait. We think about the phony, we think about the sounds first
and the graphenes follow along behind. So it is that speech to print aspect phonics fresian is mostly used
in special schools and settings, and there it's used for initial instruction from any age, because our
learners in special schools don't all necessarily start to learn to read at the same time for a number of
reasons. And it's also used at the moment for intervention for older readers, because to a certain extent,
our special schools are playing catch up with phonics instruction. Certainly, in England, it's increasingly
used in mainstream schools in the UK, and this is for a number of reasons. Mainstream schools are
increasingly finding that they have pupils with more complex needs placed with them in the early years.
Now, often these children are waiting for a place in a special school. Places are at a premium at the
moment and some children do have to wait quite a long time.

[00:05:23.750] - Ann Sullivan

So it's used for these complex pupils only, it's not for the general cohort. It's a very specific program for
those with complex needs in mainstream and it's used as initial instruction and it kind of runs parallel to
whatever established phonics program is being used in those early years. Now, obviously, if that's in a
Sounds-Write school, then the two mesh beautifully because they're both linguistic phonics and it's also
occasionally used as an intervention with older pupils in mainstream schools. It's got, I believe, a good
scope and sequence. It covers all of the concepts, all of the skills and all of the knowledge that we want
our learners to have for them to become good readers and spellers. So here you can see the books of the
program I mentioned. At the beginning, there are seven. You can see how things change as we work
through from book one through to book seven. Here is how the code changes. It follows a very logical
sequence. It takes the pupil from very simple aspects of the code called basic or in sounds like terms,
initial code, through to advanced aspects called unsurprisingly advanced code. Here are all of the sounds
that are covered as they work through the program and the order in which they're taught.

[00:06:51.650] - Ann Sullivan

In book seven, where they're working on multi syllable words, it's an opportunity to revise the main
sounds. So the real biggie sounds that we could look at in advanced code are revised in the context of
two, three and four syllable words. Here we can see how word structure changes. So we start in book one
at basic code level, focusing on VC and CBC words. And then in book two, we stop, we pause and we
take time to work on words with adjacent consonants before then moving into advanced code and
something that you don't often see in a scope and sequence, but the point of introduction of those key
concepts, the point at which they're introduced. For the learner, we start out with the simple ones speech
sounds in spoken words, represented by letters in written words. And we move through into advanced
code where we pick up those more complex concepts that children need to learn. And finally, but of
course, definitely not last, is the skills and how they map through the program. Well, teaching the skills
starts on day one and they're learned and they're practiced until the pupil has mastered them. The design
of the teaching resources and activities, I believe, needs a mention.

[00:08:19.630] - Ann Sullivan

As teachers, we're kind of programmed, we're conditioned to choose teaching materials that are as
attractive and as appealing to our learners as possible. So we are drawn to things that have got lots of
pictures on there's, lots of different formats, things at jaunty angles, wacky fonts and all of those things.
But in reality, our pupils with Sen can be overwhelmed. There's lots of clashing and opposing visuals.
They're unsure where to start or how to work through the materials in an ordered sequence. And possibly
that will result in that person shutting down and saying that they're not going to take part in that activity.
So our Sen pupils benefit from materials that are very simply designed linear in format, making them easy
to follow left and right and down the page. Now, I've just shown you some of the resources from the main
core books and I've never claimed that the resources are beautiful, but that's by design, it's designed for
accessibility. Notice that also where there are illustrations, they are most definitely part of the activity.
They're not there for aesthetic reasons. And the idea behind this is that these design features limit
distractions for our learners with Sen and that promotes engagement for pupils with Sen.

[00:09:53.210] - Ann Sullivan

They may not start instruction until they're older and they may be on a program for quite some time. So
it's really important that the resources reflect this by being age appropriate or age neutral. And that's what
I've tried to do with the phonics for Sen design. Now, we know that children with Sen take longer to learn
new pieces of information, learn new skills and take time to understand concepts. So they need to have
multiple opportunities to learn information, learn concepts, practice those skills with lots and lots and lots.
Again, opportunities to apply what they know in the context of words and texts. And this should be at the
code, the word, the phrase often overlooked. But for our Sen learners, moving from single word to two or
three word phrases is quite a leap, but the phrase sentence and text level. And because there's the need
for this multitude of learning experiences, for something to become learnt and stored in memory, it's
important that there are a range and a variety of resources to work on each aspect of instruction at every
stage in the program, because we don't want our lessons to become samey and stale.

[00:11:26.010] - Ann Sullivan

And Phonics for Sen, I believe, gives teachers and Tas the flexibility to achieve this whilst ensuring that
they are covering all aspects of the alphabetic code and the skills that the children need. Phonics for Sen
comes with a range of desktop manipulatives and these are particularly accessible for learners with sen.
They're often card based resources that the children just move around the table in order to make
responses. And for children with physical disabilities, that's really important. They may not be able to
record by writing using a pencil, but they can move cards perhaps around the table quite easily with little
force. They may need to push something, pull or even turn a card over. So just a quick look at some of
them. These are the letter sliders. They enable pupils to build words. You can give them a word to
segment and then build. And it's great for phony manipulation because they just simply slide those long
cards up and down and they can change the sound and the corresponding graphene. A very useful, of
course, desktop manipulative is the Movable alphabet, which I'm sure you're super familiar with, and it's a
feature of my program too, and there are lots of commercially available ones.

[00:12:49.040] - Ann Sullivan

But I personally think a simple set of graphenes like this printed on cards is most cost effective and the
most useful. I think the downside, premade ones, is that they're often just limited to basic code. But with
card ones you can cover every aspect of the alphabetic code. We shouldn't underestimate how useful
simple word cards are. We can play lots of games with them, we can play blending games, we can play
segmenting games with them, and we can use them for reading, of course, but they're also great for
sorting activities. So where a child can't record onto a piece of paper, they can perhaps move these cards
around to sort them. So I'm sure this is recognizable for you all. On the left we're looking at variation in
code. The child would have been sorting words containing the target sound into groups by graphene. And
on the right we're looking at overlap in the code. So we are sorting the cards by sound because they all
have that EA. Graphene in Phonicspressien also has a reading strand. It has a six series of decodable
readers that span the first six books of the core program matching to the phonics being taught.

[00:14:20.090] - Ann Sullivan

I didn't go as far as decodables for book seven because I think once they're at the stage of book six, they
can actually access quite a range of readers and I didn't feel that particularly necessary. Rather proud of
them. They're based around the adventures of a family and I'm hoping they provide interesting, engaging
stories. But the main thing is that they enable pupils to practice their decoding match to the phonics that
they're doing in class and so that they can find success and enjoy reading. So the pupils meet mom and
dad and Dan and MIM the children. And of course, there's Tim the cat and Pat the dog. These books are
available separately from the Discover Inclusion website. If we think about some of the teaching
strategies that we need to think about for our learners with sen I think it's important to say from the outset
that I personally feel that linguistic phonics and the way that it's structured in itself is inherently more
accessible than other phonics approaches. So I think that's great from the get go. Teaching strategies are
simple and used with presentational consistency and that considered use of language which I know is so
important within Sounds-Write as well.
[00:15:44.090] - Ann Sullivan
And phonics for sen. Instruction is constructed so that pupils progress in small, incremental steps with
scaffolded activities which benefit all children with sen and our pupils. More complex pupils may need
teaching strategies that are new to mainstream teachers or indeed to special school teachers, since
actually in special schools in England particularly, they are new to phonics instructions. So I've just put a
few on the screen there. There is various symbols, visuals, visual place markers and the one in the
bottom right is an etran frame which you would use with children with physical disability and who are
nonverbal. And actually, the program itself is further adapted to make it accessible for pupils with complex
needs. Onix for Sen lessons are, I would say, impactful and pacey. And in this sense I'm using the word
pacey quite carefully. It doesn't mean a super quick delivery with an expectation of a speedy response
which we might expect and get from our mainstream learners. I mean pacey where it relates to presenting
a really good range of time limited activities matched to the pupil's capacity to attend, to maintain their
focus and so be engaged. So the reality is that pupils with complex needs do lots of very short activities
within a Phonics for sen lesson.

[00:17:25.210] - Ann Sullivan

And each activity may possibly be only made up of a few task items before they move on to the next item,
the next activity. Rather, within these activities themselves pupils are of course given lots of time to
process the information, time to respond. So it's not pacey in that sense. It's not rushed. It's simply that
there are lots of short activities. And here's another kind of benefit of the design of phonics for Sen
resources in that because they're linear you can easily cut them up into individual task items which can be
presented singly to a pupil and that avoids them feeling overwhelmed. They feel that they can cope with
these small manageable chunks. And in this case, this is an activity focusing on phony manipulation. And
the pupil has used a movable alphabet to respond. Of course, this is something you'll be familiar with as
part of your Sounds-Write training. But the program encourages instructional routines to become quickly
established and familiar. And it includes a recognizable routine to lessons. And there is an optional visual
timetable available relating to the activities within the program. And we need a consistent approach to the
way specific tasks are carried out.

[00:18:55.640] - Ann Sullivan

How we read, how we spell and build words are just two examples. And we need to be consistent in the
way the materials are presented, but also in the dialogue or the pattern that is associated with the task.
And of course, our language is simple and easy for our learners to understand. In terms of timing, pupils
should work through the program at a pace that's appropriate for their individual needs. And this needs to
be something that's easy for teachers to manage. Pupils should have access to daily teaching sessions,
of course, and those sessions should focus on reading and spelling in Phonics for Sen, just as in Sounds-
Write, reading and spelling are taught in tandem. And the phonic approach should be embedded across
the curriculum. And it's beneficial for all of our staff to be trained in at least basic phonics so that they're
confident to use this approach in any and all subjects. If a child needs assistance to read a word or to
spell a word in mainstream schools during initial instruction, the expectation is that children will complete
their phonics within two or three years. And this won't be the case for children with SEM.

[00:20:20.710] - Ann Sullivan

And that's because of the need for them to be involved in much more learning experiences, much more
practice and application built in for their learning to be secure. And also if we're using for our more
complex learners strategies that use a lot of manipulatives, implementing those does eat into a certain
extent to our instructional time. So we've got to be realistic about time scales for pupils with Scn and
recognize that it's going to take considerably longer in some cases, which is an important message that
needs to be shared with parents, and that we can't fix it to a time, to a timeline. We can't say that pupils
will be reaching certain milestones so many months or terms after beginning initial instruction. Phonics for
Scn has a full suite of paper based criteria reference tests that enable you to assess pupils. And these
cover code knowledge in both directions. So sound to graphene, graphene to Sound covers blending,
segmenting reading high frequency words and spelling, high frequency words. And these are useful for
baselining pupils and also for monitoring progress by episodic testing. And there are alternative versions
available to enable access for learners who require them so particularly those with physical disability or
those who are nonverbal.

[00:22:01.170] - Ann Sullivan

But also I'm pleased to say that Phonics for Sen is now available in two online tracking tools. It's on
Phonics Tracker and very, very soon will be on B Squared, which is an online tool that's used very widely
in special schools in the UK.

[00:22:20.810] - Ann Sullivan

So I thought it would be nice.

[00:22:22.330] - Ann Sullivan

To have a brief look at what accessible phonics looks like. I'm going to show you a short video, which is
you can watch again on YouTube. I have a small YouTube chAnnl and it's me teaching a pupil. She's five.
She's in reception in a mainstream school. She's nonverbal, but she does make vocalizations, but they're
not related to sounds and they're not related to words. She has seen her friends doing that in phonics
lessons and she wants to do that too. She has some fine motor skill difficulties, which means she's not
able to write with. Hold a pen and write and you'll.

[00:22:59.520] - Ann Sullivan

See lots of the strategies that I've.
[00:23:01.200] - Ann Sullivan
Kind of alluded to in action here, and many of them may be unfamiliar to you. I should say that the ones
that you're seeing, if you like, were my prototypes and the ones that are available now, I've been
delighted to have someone illustrate them and make them a lot more pleasing to the eye. So let's take a
look.

[00:23:24.990] - Ann Sullivan

Ready to go? Yeah. Okay. First thing we're going to do is we are going to see about pushing some
sounds together and listening for the word. Okay? So I'm going to say the sounds and you're going to tell
me what the word is and then we'll check the picture. Elf. Elm. Got that one straight away. Let's check.
Fantastic. You're doing a really good job. I'm seeing some really good looking and listening and using that
thinking voice. That's fantastic. What about this one? And and elm. End. You'd like me to say it again?
That's fine. And elm. Elf. End. Let's check. Very good. We said that sign means it's the end of the road.
Good job. Now we're going to do a little bit of word reading, but I'm going to do it a little bit different today.
We've not done this before. I'm going to be really sneaky. I'm going to hide the letters and slowly pull the
cards so that you can see them in your thinking voice, in your head. I want you to think of the.

[00:25:24.010] - Ann Sullivan

Sounds and push them together.

[00:25:26.090] - Ann Sullivan

I'm not going to say anything. Think of the sounds and push them together and then you can tell me
which word it is.

[00:25:34.890] - Ann Sullivan

Okay?

[00:25:43.530] - Ann Sullivan

And ask. Ant. You'd like me to do that again? Okay. So I'm going to pull the card and show you the
letters. You think of the sounds in your thinking voice. Push those sounds together. Ready? And ask. Ant.
Very good. It is ant. Let's find a picture of an ant. There's. There we go. There's a different picture of an
ant.

[00:26:31.810] - Ann Sullivan

There's quite a lot of going on there. Firstly, you'll notice that she was able to respond to the task by
pointing to a choice that I offered on a visual place marker and I was simply anchoring auditory
information to the red, the yellow and the blue dot and she was able to listen and choose accordingly.
You might have caught a glimpse on her right of the I have something to say card, which had some
symbols on that she's familiar with and she can point to them when she wants me to do something. So in
this case she was asking for me to repeat it for her so that she could listen again. So this was a real
teaching situation, it wasn't set up and it was a warts and all video because you can see with so much
going on, it's actually quite intense. As a teacher you have to remember what choices you've given to the
child and actually I make a mistake because I can't my senior moment, I can't.

[00:27:33.440] - Ann Sullivan

Quite remember what I said first time.

[00:27:35.270] - Ann Sullivan

Round, but it is a challenging but extremely rewarding teaching teaching situation. Ready to go? Just to
say that I offer a training package to school, it is a little unusual, kind of a response to COVID, which I
have kind of stuck with because I think it works really well. So the training is made up of twelve video
presentations covering all aspects of teaching, reading and spelling, particularly focused of course on
more complex learners. So it covers the code, the key skills, listening to children read, what not to teach
and why, covers assessment, planning and much more. So the way it works is the school's phonics or
literacy lead gets the videos and watches them independently, reviews all the supporting materials and
then we meet as many times as that person needs, we discuss topics. It's an opportunity for her to ask
questions because what I want is for them to feel really confident because on the day they will be
pressing the button, playing the videos, running the activities, because there's some activities for staff to
do so that they can practice blending, for example, or segmenting. They'll be facilitating that discussion
and they'll be there answering questions.

[00:29:02.750] - Ann Sullivan

Another great thing about this training model is that schools can plan their training to fit in with their
schedule. And that means that actually over time they can train the whole staff and the school retains all
of the videos and all the materials and there's no time limit to access, it's theirs to keep. That makes it
super sustainable and they can use it again if staff change, if you need it for refresher training or for
induction training. And there are no follow on costs and no subscription, which is great for schools in
these times when money is tight. Alongside the core program, the Access to Phonics book is now
available, which describes a lot of the strategies that you've just seen in the video and some more. It's
super practical. It contains lots of supporting resources that you can photocopy. It's included in the
Phonics for Sen training package, but it is available separately on Amazon if you're interested in that. And
alongside that, I have a parent's guide which just there's no activities in it, it's just simply a very simple
explanation of the alphabetic code. I talk a little bit about Scarborough's Reading Rope and ways that
they can support their children at home with reading and spelling.
[00:30:24.970] - Ann Sullivan
I tried to price it to be as low as possible because my thoughts were that schools would be able to then
afford to buy multiple copies which they can share with parents, and in this way it might be a way to reach
those more hard to reach parents. That's phonics for Sen. I'm just going to tell you a little bit now about
the Rainbow Literacy Suite, which is separate but complements the Phonics for Sen program. And it was
developed between myself and in collaboration with Kerry Talia of Discover Inclusion. So these provide
teaching and learning activities. Once again, it's for children with moderate, severe and complex needs,
and it's for those beginning their learning journey into literacy, really. So the suite covers all aspects of
reading, spelling and writing. We have Rainbow Writers there and it includes a specialist resource called
the Thinkers, which is specifically for children who are pre or nonverbal. The Speakers is an interesting
one because it's for children who need to work on spoken language structure. So it's actually very visual
and it's all oral work. There's no reading involved for the children, but it's specifically working on the
structure of very simple sentences.

[00:31:51.290] - Ann Sullivan

I'll tell you a little bit more about the readers, though. The Readers packs provide a fairly comprehensive
set of structured teacher or Ta Led materials, and it aims to work on all aspects of reading. And we've
taken our starting point of Scarborough's Reading Rope, and we provide activities that teach both
strands. So we look at decoding. There's automaticity in there. Obviously there's phonemic awareness
because we're working on the blending skills and phony manipulation, but we also look at language
structure, language comprehension, vocabulary and background subject knowledge. So we try and pull
everything in. The focus of the work is a decodable reader, the Rainbow Reader, and that matches to the
appropriate set within the Phonics for Scn program, but it's compatible to other Phonics programs as well.
And of course, the focus is on VC and CBC words at that basic or initial code level. All the resources are
filled with super focused activities supported by Kerry's illustrations. I wish I could say they were mine, but
they're Kerry's, and I feel that they're wonderful and engaging, so I'm going to share them with you. Now
you can meet Tat the Magic Cat in the Writers, pat the Plumber in the Readers, and in our Thinkers you
can meet SAP the world famous Snake Detective.

[00:33:20.070] - Ann Sullivan

So I hope you enjoy those. And for more information, please either go to my Phonics for Sen website or
the Discover Inclusion website. So, finally, I just hope you found this interesting and useful and you've
gained some snippets about how we can make Phonics accessible for learners with complex needs. Here
are my contacts. Do go and visit my website if you would like to any more information, but mostly keep in
touch with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Many thanks.

[00:33:55.230] - Naomi Hinton

Thank you so much for that session. That was such an informative and interesting session. And can I just
say how wonderful it was to see that video of your Phonics session in action? Having read the book and
read about how you use the visual place markers and the child using their thinking voice, it was just
wonderful to actually see that in action with a child and how are able to, what did you say, anchor the
auditory information to the colored dots. You really have to see that to understand how it works. So thank
you for sharing that with us. And I can really recommend the book, so if you've not seen it, please do go
and look it up. So thank you. You covered a lot in that session. I was particularly interested, actually,
when you were talking about the elements of your program and how it's a linguistic phonics program
based on McGinnis's prototype and it shares a lot of elements in common with Sounds-Write. And you
actually said that they mesh beautifully, I think you said. I just wondered what advice would you give to
teachers, perhaps in mainstream settings who use Sounds-Write who are thinking, actually, I do have
some children who I feel would benefit from a more accessible approach, such as they might be coming
across your program for the first time here.

[00:35:23.000] - Naomi Hinton

Could you just talk to us a little bit about how you would imagine it they would work together?

[00:35:27.870] - Ann Sullivan

Sure, yeah. I think the first thing to say is you need to know the learners needs really well. You need to
find out as much information as possible. And often learners with more complex needs will bring with
them an OT, a speech and language therapist, an educational psychologist, and of course, they'll be
accompanied by their parents, so they're a rich source of information and the child himself will be able to
indicate which are the best ways for them to be included too. So it's fact finding, first of all. And once you
feel as if you've got quite a clear picture of the child's needs, then the first thing that I would suggest is the
access to Phonics book. Actually, you could use some of the strategies alongside your Sounds-Write
activities. And in that way, children could be included in the Sounds-Write mainstream teaching group,
perhaps with support and someone alongside them enabling access. So that will do accessibility for
children. So it might be that in some time, outside or within the class, in another part of the curriculum,
they need to be doing some further learning, some more activities of that. So I'm not suggesting
absolutely every complex child needs to automatically go on my program.

[00:37:09.640] - Ann Sullivan

I think your first port of call is how can I make what I'm already doing accessible? But if the child is not
able to keep up, even if they're involved in keep up sessions, then you would be looking towards, shall I
be doing a specialist program? And of course, upon expression is one. There aren't many others around,
but there are others. I have to be fair on that. And I think one of the things that worries schools,
particularly in England, maybe not in other parts of the UK, is this idea of fidelity to a program. And what
are ofsted going to say if they come in and they see that we're running Sounds-Write for our mainstream
learners and they're doing fantastic. And then we've got a child who's doing something different and
perhaps outside the classroom and perhaps in a quiet, distraction free environment, because that's what
the child needs. It's an interesting question. I have had lots of conversations with the DfE about this
because this is a problem for mainstream schools and they seem to be suggesting that they are switching
their message to fidelity to an approach rather than fidelity to a program, which is music to my ears
because especially in Sounds-Write schools, it would fit in beautifully.

[00:38:26.100] - Ann Sullivan

Because our approach is fundamentally the same. So if that child is not in a phonics for Sen phonics
lesson but is doing something else with the teacher and the teachers uses all of those Sounds-Write
phonics techniques and approaches to spelling and reading words, it's the same language.

[00:38:46.150] - Ann Sullivan

It'S exactly the same. It's the approach that's important.

[00:38:49.110] - Naomi Hinton

So hopefully that's really interesting and actually reading your book and a bit more about your program,
as somebody who knows Sounds-Write very well, you will notice lots of things that they have in common
because they are both linguistic phonics programs. Naturally, you said it yourself that actually you're not
saying that you will have children who are struggling, so they need to go on to your program. Actually,
Sounds-Write has been written in order to help all children learn, and it is a very accessible program. And
you did say that actually your program is for those children who've perhaps got quite complex needs. It's
something that people might want to now you said that we know that students with Sen can take longer to
learn, sometimes considerably longer, and they would need a lot more practice. Sometimes we encounter
teachers or perhaps even parents who feel, oh, we've tried phonics and it didn't work, so we need to try
something else. What would you say to those people, whether they're teachers or parents who are
perhaps feeling like that?

[00:39:59.870] - Ann Sullivan

I do so wish that I had a wonderful snappy answer for this, but I haven't. The nearest I can come to it is
we need to be aware that if we are taking decisions about, well, they've been on Phonics for three years,
which is the same as their peers, and their peers are all doing it, so these children are not able to do it,
therefore, Phonics hasn't worked. We need to take a step back and we need to look how far into their
Phonics program they are. And when we do that, what becomes very clear, it's not that Phonics hasn't
worked, it's that Phonics isn't finished yet. Those children are being pulled out of it at a point where their
learners still had access to it. So, we need to be firm, we need to be consistent, we need to have the
courage of our convictions and we need to carry on for those children. And those conversations that I'm
sure you're thinking in your head about the mainstream children, those conversations are happening in
special too, because for some of the really complex learners, we're talking six or seven years on a
Phonics program.
[00:41:16.090] - Ann Sullivan
And that's just the time it takes so we can't misinterpret the situation and.

[00:41:21.830] - Ann Sullivan

Think Phonics doesn't work.

[00:41:23.110] - Ann Sullivan

What we have to do is think, Phonics isn't finished yet. So how, when they go into the next stage of their
education, do we enable them to have access to what they need, which is to finish their Phonics program
and carry on? But I wish I could capture that.

[00:41:39.290] - Ann Sullivan

Into a lovely phrase.

[00:41:41.930] - Naomi Hinton

I feel that you have. Phonics isn't finished yet. I think that's a really great way of thinking about it. These
children are taking longer to learn Phonics and they're not finished yet. That's great. Thank you so much,
Ann. I really enjoyed speaking to you today. And thank you to everybody for joining us today to hear from
Ann. As I said before, Ann's website, Phonics Rescn, aims to provide learners with special educational
needs with those tools and resources they need to succeed. And you can learn more about Ann's
program by visiting her website. And we'll make sure we put the link to that alongside this video so you
can access her website. Thank you again for joining us today, Ann. And thank you, everybody else. I
hope you enjoy the rest of the symposium.

[00:42:28.440] - Ann Sullivan

Thank you for having me.