Skip to content
Free school trialMy learning
Curriculum

Developing the Reading Curriculum for Learners with Complex Needs- Sight Words, Phonics, or Something Else?

Stop choosing between sight words and phonics, and build a reading curriculum for pupils with complex needs that makes room for both.

  • 54 minutes
  • 1 CPD hour
  • Certificate
Start free trialBuy this course

Free for 14 days, then £7 a month or £70 a year. Cancel before day 14 and you won't pay anything.

About this course

By the time he was 20, a young man with complex needs could recognise more than 300 picture books, and reading gave him a great deal of joy. It's a good reason to get the reading curriculum right, even when it's hard to know where to start.

Many special schools teach whole words well and are now being asked about phonics too. The answer here is that it isn't either/or. Whole words give pupils a quick visual route in and sounds give them one that keeps going, and the reading rope shows where each belongs. When "phonics isn't working", you'll learn to find the part that isn't, whether that's rhyme, syllables or blending.

You'll also see how sensory stories, story massage, digital libraries and accessible formats all count as reading, as long as you know what each one is for.

Modules

2 modules
  1. 1Webinar Playback44 min
  2. 2Q&A10 min

Across all our courses

91%

of people who rated one of our courses would recommend it to a friend or colleague. From more than 95,000 ratings.

Other courses on this topic

See all courses

Good to know

  • A certificate with your CPD hours that anyone can check online.
  • Buy the course and you have 12 months to finish it.
  • Stop when you like and pick up where you left off.
  • Your school is a member? Log in and it’s already there. You won’t pay twice.

Start this course today

Try it free for 14 days. The trial opens every course in the library, including this one.

Start free trialBuy this course