Supporting pupils with SEND when learning to read
- landrew3
- Sep 25
- 6 min read
Check out this blog to learn more about how best to support your pupils with SEND when learning to read.
The number of pupils in schools with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is increasing.
The DfE's most recent publication of statistics for Special Educational Needs from June 2025 (based on the census information collected in January 2025) highlights the following...
Over 1.7 million pupils in England have special educational needs (SEN)
An increase of 93,700 (5.6%) pupils since 2024. This includes the number of pupils with an education, health and care (EHC) plan and the number of pupils with SEN support, both of which continue a trend of increases since 2016.
The most common type of need for those with an EHC plan is autistic spectrum disorder and for those with SEN support is speech, language and communication needs.
See the full publication here Special educational needs in England, Academic year 2024/25 - Explore education statistics - GOV.UK
Many schools are enrolling a higher number of pupils with SEND year on year and in many cases these are pupils with significant SEND. We need to understand how best to support all children, so that we can make reasonable adaptations to meet the needs of all our pupils.
This blog will highlight some ways to best support pupils with SEND when teaching them how to read, and hopefully give you food for thought for when you are planning how to teach all children to read.
Why we need to teach all children to learn to read including those with significant SEND?
The ability to read opens up a wealth of life experience and opportunity. It is one of our main forms of communication. Learning to read can transform lives.
Even though some children may not grow up to be fully independent readers in their adulthood, it's our job to give them the best opportunity possible to be able to read for communication, enjoyment and individual preference.
In the words of Anne Donnellan... 'The least dangerous assumption is to presume competence which leads to teaching with high expectations! We cannot be sure of capability until we try.'
I came across this quote and it struck me to be so powerful.
It's something I come back to all the time when working with SEND pupils - often these children surprise us.
We cannot have the mindset of 'they can't do...' we need to think 'I wonder if they could do... if I did...'
How do we learn to read?
It's important to know that we all learn to read the in the same way. The alphabet is our shared body of knowledge - this body of knowledge doesn't change.
Ideally, before school, we need to have had the opportunity to develop our spoken language, have been immersed in a wealth of stories and other meaningful texts and listened to and joined in with lots of rhymes, songs and word play to develop our phonological awareness.
Many of the children starting in our Reception classes have not had these high quality experiences. For some SEND pupils they may have barriers linked to attention or hearing which may mean that these opportunities have been more limited. It's imperative that we ensure to provide these experiences alongside excellent phonics teaching.
We need to understand that phonemes (sounds) are represented in a written form as graphemes (spellings). We can then memorise these grapheme to phoneme correspondences (GPCs).
We then need to practice blending sounds in words out loud. For many children with SEND this can be difficult. They may need to be provided with support and scaffold here.
The main take away here is that all pupils need the same knowledge of the alphabetic code to become independent readers and spellers. ‘Study upon study shows that children who have been diagnosed with developmental conditions learn to decode words by relying on the same processes as other readers.’
Systematic Synthetic Phonics is the most efficient way to teach the alphabetic code. If we teach a child to read through a different method such as sight reading we are doing them a disservice. We need children to be able to decode any word and we cannot teach them to sight read every word.
Most children will be able to keep up with the pace of the SSP programme and the term by term expectations of progress. Some SEND pupils may take longer to learn to read. They are still on the same journey. However, they may need to access smaller steps of learning with additional scaffolding to begin with. This article by Monique Nowers unpicks the ladder analogy and the importance of smaller steps for some pupils - Are SEN children different? – How to Teach Reading
Least vulnerable pupils.
Most vulnerable pupils.
Importance of the Reading Leader and the SENCO working together
The benefits of Reading Leaders and SENCOs working closely together, can be a game changer. If both the reading leader and SENCO have a clear understanding of how all pupils learn to read and a shared vision for each pupil's reading, shared expertise, strong communication and planning can make a huge impact.
The SENCO at my own school and I (reading leader) have started to ensure that we book in regular meetings after assessment points throughout the year to ensure that what we unpick the data together and decide on next steps. It's been extremely beneficial as we're able to utilise each of our expertise to ensure that all our SEND children are getting excellent teaching of reading that works for them. It seems so simple, but in our busy school environments this can get missed quite easily.
Ways we can support our children with SEND EEF guidance
Take a look at the EEF guidance here - you may find some interesting recommendations for some of the challenges you're facing.
Knowing how best a child communicates is key to accurate assessment and teaching
We need to know our SEND children really well. We need to know how each child communicates best. Here are some things to consider:
If I child communications verbally, consider how many words they can attend to and understand. You may have children who can follow 2 word instructions or need their name to be said before the instruction.
If a child uses visual aids as part of their communication in school, which visuals are they most familiar with and how do they use them.
How long can a child attend for? You may have children who's SSP lesson needs to be chunked throughout the day as they can only attend for a short time length.
If a child is non-verbal, how do they communicate? Is this through visual aids, pointing, gazing, noise or movement to indicate a choice.
All the above and more needs to be considered and planned into each child's reading lessons and assessments. All staff working with these pupils need to be consistent.
Non-Verbal adaptations when teaching and assessing
Children who are non-verbal or non-speaking will need to have their lessons and assessment adapted to meet their needs. Here are some ways in which you might do so.
Give these pupils time to process and respond - don't jump in too soon.
Model how to think or use a 'thinking voice'. This is important especially when learning to blend as non-verbal children will need to imagine the sounds being said aloud in their 'thinking voice' and listen out for the word.
For example you might say 'Watch me use my thinking voice to read this word'.
Provide children with a choice to show what they know. This could be laying out a choice of sound cards such as b, d and p and asking the child to point to d.
Use visuals for children to show what they know.
Adaptive teaching whilst still showing fidelity to your SSP
The table below gives some ideas of how we might adapt our SSP lessons for SEND pupils whilst still showing fidelity to the programme. This is not an exhaustive list - more food for thought.
Things which need to stay the same. | Adaptations that could be made. |
Methods of teaching e.g. blending | Adapting the pace or timings |
SSP resources | Pupil's may have adapted resources e.g. visual aids |
SSP language | More repetition in the lesson |
Order of progression | More repeated practice daily |
Decodable books | Adapting words and sentences when spelling |
SSP programmes, support and advice
Some SSPs have SEND programmes and training for staff. Get in touch with your SSP provider for advice if you have SEND pupils in your school who are struggling to learn to read.
If you have a pupil with SEND who is finding it difficult to blend - look out for our blog on blending which will be published in October 2025.
For more information about us and our support go to English Hubs - St Wilfrid's English Hub (stwenglishhub.co.uk)
