When older pupils show very low phonological-awareness scores, each pupil needs an individual review before the school chooses an assessment, intervention or referral route.

Phonological and decoding difficulties can persist into secondary school, but phonics is not always the principal barrier. A detailed assessment should show whether teaching should focus on sound-letter knowledge, multisyllabic decoding, morphology, fluency, vocabulary or comprehension.

Review the full reading profile

Bring together screening results, reading and spelling samples, intervention history, curriculum access, pupil views and information from home. Check accuracy and understanding in age-appropriate texts.

Assess the component skills

Explore:

• phoneme awareness;

• unfamiliar-word reading;

• sound-letter correspondences;

• blending and segmenting;

• syllable division;

• reading and spelling multisyllabic words;

• roots, prefixes and suffixes;

• connected-text accuracy and fluency.

Analyse errors. A pupil who misreads sound-letter patterns needs different teaching from one who decodes accurately but slowly or struggles mainly with word meaning.

Choose an assessment for the question

• Fresh Start placement assessment (paid) is a programme-placement route when the school uses or is considering Fresh Start. It identifies a teaching starting point and possible groups. It is not a general literacy assessment.

• PhAB and PhAB2 Primary (paid) assess aspects of phonological processing. PhAB covers ages 6 to 14 and PhAB2 Primary ages 5 to 11, so many Secondary pupils will be outside the norms. Check the current edition, administration time, costs and qualification requirements.

• CTOPP-2 (paid) can provide a broader assessment of phonological processing when used by an appropriately qualified professional. It uses US norms and is not a direct phonics-placement assessment.

• Curriculum-based unfamiliar-word, spelling and connected-text tasks provide a free initial route. They can identify error patterns but are not standardised.

• DfE phonics screening check materials: Free past papers of 40 short words, half of them made-up. With older pupils, read from the plain word list on the answer sheet and ignore the Year 1 pass mark; it is a quick check of basic sound-letter knowledge.

Turn results into action

Summarise the secure skills, exact gaps, teaching sequence, likely intensity and progress measures. Group pupils only when their starting points are sufficiently similar. The free DfE Reading Framework covers phonics and reading support for older pupils who cannot yet decode well, up to Year 9 (sections 5 and 13).

Move the principal focus away from phonics when the relevant patterns are secure and fluency, morphology, vocabulary or comprehension now presents the main barrier. If progress remains limited despite well-matched and well-delivered teaching, consider specialist discussion based on the unresolved question.

Screening identifies a need for investigation. It does not establish a diagnosis.

Talamo has no commercial relationship with any of the organisations named here. We suggest them only because we think they could be useful to schools.