Introduction

This article examines the evidence for teaching meaningful literacy to students who rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), students who may benefit from AAC, and students with complex communication and motor access needs. Literacy is understood here as the development of text-based reading and writing, including decoding, comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, composition and written communication.

For this group of learners, successful literacy acquisition may require pathways that differ from those commonly used with speaking and non-disabled students. However, difference in route should not be confused with reduction in ambition or the blocking or delaying of literacy learning. Students who rely on AAC require access to rich and purposeful literacy teaching, supported by adaptive teaching, reasonable adjustments and careful attention to access, cognition, language and motor demands.

The problem is not phonics. The problem is treating synthetic phonics as the only valid pathway into literacy. AAC users also need analytic, analogic, embedded, morphology-informed and AAC-specific phonics, with spelling taught through meaningful reading, comprehension, vocabulary and writing.

The article explores the teaching approaches and adjustments needed to make literacy instruction accessible and meaningful. It considers the role of phonics within a broader literacy framework and provides examples of how reading, writing, vocabulary development and communication can be taught in ways that support students who rely on AAC to participate as readers, writers and meaning-makers.

Literature Review

Literacy is not simply another curriculum subject for learners who rely on AAC; it is a route to autonomous, generative communication. Symbol-based AAC vocabularies can support participation, choice-making and classroom interaction, but they cannot anticipate every name, curriculum term, place, feeling, grammatical form, literary phrase or personal message that a learner may want to express. Without access to spelling, reading and writing, the learner remains dependent on vocabulary selected, organised and programmed by others; literacy therefore extends communication beyond pre-stored messages and graphic symbols into self-authored language. This is why literacy teaching for AAC users must not be displaced by a narrower focus on symbol recognition, device navigation or functional requesting. The risk is well evidenced: AAC users may be excluded from literacy instruction, offered literacy tasks that require spoken responses, supported by professionals who lack training in accessible literacy teaching, or given AAC systems that do not support the transition from graphic symbols to text (Light et al., 2025). The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) similarly notes that lack of literacy can restrict AAC users to non-orthographic symbols and limit novel message generation, while Erickson et al. argue that learners with significant disabilities have too often received reductionist functional word instruction rather than comprehensive reading and writing teaching (ASHA, n.d.; Erickson et al., 2009).

In educational practice, students who rely on AAC, or who have complex access needs, are often supported through the addition of pictures and symbols to written text. However, research suggests that when symbols are placed above or below words, learners may focus on the symbols rather than the print.

Symbols alone are also only useful as reading aids for very simple ideas. Their overuse can distract from text, limit language development and delay literacy. Symbols and pre-programmed AAC pages are essential for participation, choices, social interaction, classroom routines and self-advocacy, but they are not a substitute for literacy.

A similar issue arises with descriptive teaching. This approach encourages learners to use common core and high-frequency fringe words to describe more complex ideas, rather than adding many low-frequency topic specific words to communication pages. It has value because it helps learners use core vocabulary creatively and show broad understanding (Van Tatenhove, 2009; Witkowski and Baker, 2012). However, it can also restrict expression if it replaces access to specific vocabulary, spelling, keyboard use and text-based writing.

A fixed symbol vocabulary cannot contain every name, topic word, tense form, literary phrase, technical term, morpheme or personal message a learner may need. For example, a Year 3 learner writing a horror story may want words such as ghoul, descended, terrifying or howl, but these may not be available in a commonly used symbol-based vocabulary. Thus language rather than thought is being limited if a descriptive teaching approach is adopted. The learner may know what they want to say but lack the tools to say it.

The same applies to curriculum learning. Using descriptive teaching, a learner might describe photosynthesis as plants needing light and water, taking in “bad gas” and giving out “good gas”. This may show some understanding, but it is not precise enough for subject learning or qualifications. The learner also needs access to words such as chlorophyll, chloroplast, glucose, oxygen, carbon dioxide, starch and respiration.

Descriptive teaching therefore has a place in AAC practice, but it should not replace technical vocabulary, spelling, keyboard access or print-based literacy. Learners who rely on AAC need both flexible communication and direct access to literacy, so they can use precise vocabulary, generate independent messages and take part in qualification-level learning (Erickson and Koppenhaver, 2020).

Proud’s (2021) survey suggests that literacy intervention for AAC users may be reduced or discontinued not because literacy is unimportant, but because professionals face practical barriers such as limited training, confidence, materials and caseload capacity. In some cases, intervention also appears to be stopped because difficulties are attributed to the learner’s own impairments or “readiness”, rather than being understood as access and teaching barriers that require adaptation. Students who might benefit from AAC but do not yet have access to it run the risk of being assessed as having less cognitive ability than is, in fact, the case.

For example, students with the label of PMLD should not be assumed to be beyond literacy simply because their communication, movement, sensory or access needs make their understanding difficult to observe. The label describes a high level of support need; it should not be used as a ceiling on learning potential. There is evidence that people with PMLD are often underestimated: Gjermestad et al. (2023) report that it is “all too common” for others to underestimate what people with PMLD can achieve and do. For this reason, learners with PMLD should be given regular access to text-based literacy, including shared reading, meaningful print, vocabulary, letter and word work, adapted response methods and AAC-accessible opportunities to show recognition and understanding. This does not mean forcing all learners through a standard reading scheme, but it does mean ensuring that low expectations do not remove access to print before the learner has had a fair opportunity to demonstrate what they can understand and learn. The DfE reading framework (2023) supports this position, stating that only “a very few” pupils with PMLD may be unable to access direct literacy instruction, and that pupils with complex needs may require adapted strategies and much longer timescales rather than exclusion from reading instruction altogether. It does however allow for disapplication for students with PMLD which could be seen as a contradiction.

There is no robust population-wide statistic showing what proportion of AAC users have normal cognition, because AAC users are a heterogeneous group.

However, in cerebral palsy, one of the major groups who may require AAC, research suggests that around half of children do not have intellectual impairment; for example, Wotherspoon et al. (2023) found that 44.1% of school-aged children with CP met criteria for intellectual developmental disorder, implying that 55.9% did not. This makes it unsafe to infer cognitive impairment from a person’s need for AAC. Even when students who rely on AAC have strong cognitive skills, they are often at risk of delayed literacy development because they have reduced access to spoken rehearsal, informal print experiences, independent writing, direct instruction and fast participation in classroom literacy tasks. Dahlgren Sandberg and Hjelmquist (1996) found that nonspeaking children with cerebral palsy who were matched with nondisabled peers for age and intellectual level still scored lower on reading and writing measures, with the authors reporting that “the comparison group…scored higher” despite comparable phonological awareness. Peeters et al. (2009) similarly found that children with cerebral palsy “lag behind on all reading precursors” early in schooling.

Many learners who rely on AAC need the same long-term literacy ambition as their speaking peers: to read with understanding, write for authentic purposes, learn curriculum vocabulary and generate their own messages. Comprehensive literacy instruction for learners with significant disabilities includes shared and independent reading, writing, phonological awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, decoding and spelling, while AAC research emphasises communicative competence, language development, literacy and participation rather than restricted or low-level communication goals (Erickson and Koppenhaver, 2020; Light and McNaughton, 2014; Light et al., 2019). The route may need to be different, but the aspiration remains the same.

Hedrick, Katims and Carr’s study challenges the assumption that learners with learning difficulties should receive only functional or isolated word-reading instruction. In a year-long classroom study, nine elementary-aged pupils with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities were taught through an adapted Four Blocks literacy framework, combining guided reading, self-selected literature, word work, phonics, sight-word teaching and meaningful writing. The pupils made measurable gains in concepts about print, story retelling, sight-word vocabulary, early decoding, writing behaviours and confidence with written language. Although the study was small and descriptive, rather than experimental, it supports the argument that learners with significant cognitive and communication needs benefit from broad, balanced and meaning-rich literacy teaching, rather than a narrow curriculum limited to decontextualised phonics or basic functional words (Hedrick, Katims and Carr, 1999).

More recent studies suggest that AAC users can make gains from phonics-based reading instruction when programmes are adapted so that learners do not have to produce spoken responses. For example, Linder et al. (2023) adapted a phonics-based programme for students with intellectual disabilities who used AAC by using pointing responses, internal speech and iPad-based reading and spelling activities; all three participants improved in word reading, although spelling outcomes were less consistent. Ahlgrim-Delzell et al. (2016) also found that students who received an iPad-based phonics curriculum outperformed students receiving sight-word instruction, with responses made through the device rather than through speech. However, this evidence base remains limited. Yorke et al.’s (2021) systematic review found positive effects for adapted foundational reading interventions for AAC users but also noted the need for research beyond highly controlled settings, including studies delivered by everyday teachers and service providers. The evidence therefore supports adapted phonics as a useful component of literacy teaching for AAC users, but it does not yet establish that phonics alone, or synthetic phonics specifically, is superior to broader approaches to literacy.

For children following the standard school literacy pathway, phonics is often treated as an early foundation providing access to decoding skills that aims to improve fluent reading. In England, the phonics screening check is normally taken at the end of Year 1, when children are typically six, and repeated in Year 2 for pupils who have not met the expected standard. Because phonics screening results are also used as an indicator of how effectively schools are teaching early literacy, this accountability pressure may contribute to reluctance to adapt the check for AAC users, even where adaptation would be necessary to allow pupils to demonstrate their knowledge.

The National Curriculum frames phonics as especially important in the early teaching of reading to beginners, while also making clear that reading develops through both word reading and comprehension, and that pupils should move into wide reading, vocabulary growth, discussion of texts, fluency and writing for meaning. This age-linked model of literacy development is not appropriate when planning for older AAC users. Many older AAC users have missed literacy teaching or lacked age-expected instruction when they were younger. They many not have had ordinary access to early phonics because traditional phonics teaching often assumes speech, oral blending, verbal sound production and rapid spoken responses. Whilst Yorke et al.’s systematic review found positive effects when phonological awareness, letter–sound correspondence and decoding interventions were adapted for AAC users, they also noted the need for research beyond controlled settings and researcher-delivered interventions.

Older learners who rely on AAC need adapted phonics within a broader, age-respectful programme that includes shared reading, comprehension, vocabulary development, word prediction, curriculum texts and purposeful use of print. Erickson and Koppenhaver’s (2020) comprehensive model supports this wider view, presenting reading and writing for students with significant disabilities as an ongoing process.

The two key issues seem to revolve around firstly, whether synthetic phonics should be the only phonics approach that is offered to this group of learners and secondly, whether that approach should precede wider literacy teaching in a comprehensive literacy model.

Phonics first or comprehensive literacy?

There continues to be debate about the efficacy of a synthetic phonics, first and foremost approach for the general school population.

The case for synthetic phonics first

The strongest argument for synthetic phonics first is that reading English requires learners to understand how written symbols map onto sounds. A child who cannot decode is dependent on memory, guessing, adult support, or pictures.

Explicit phonics makes the alphabetic code visible instead of assuming that children will infer it from exposure to books. That matters most for pupils who do not arrive at school with strong print knowledge, strong phonological awareness, or rich early literacy experience. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (2026) similarly treats phonics as a low-cost, evidence-supported approach, while noting that it should be matched to the child’s phonemic awareness and grapheme knowledge.

Synthetic phonics also has a fluency argument behind it. Kuhn, Schwanenflugel and Meisinger (2010) argue that fluency involves accuracy, automaticity and prosody. Accurate and automatic word recognition reduces the cognitive load of decoding, making it more possible for the learner to attend to meaning, phrasing and comprehension.

However, perhaps the most prominent support for the synthetic phonics argument is not “phonics only”. The Rose Review (2006) which led to the introduction of synthetic phonics as mandatory in England, placed high-quality phonic work within a “language-rich curriculum” and described good teaching as helping children apply decoding and encoding skills to fiction, non-fiction and wider curriculum content.

So the pro-phonics-first position is that children need explicit, systematic teaching of the alphabetic code early, because decoding is a gateway skill. But phonics must be purposeful, applied in reading and writing, and quickly connected to fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and real texts.

The case for comprehensive literacy from the start

The strongest argument for comprehensive literacy is that reading is not the same as decoding. Decoding is necessary, but reading also involves meaning, language, vocabulary, syntax, background knowledge, motivation, text experience, writing and fluency. The EEF explicitly notes that phonics improves reading accuracy but does not necessarily improve comprehension, so vocabulary, spelling and comprehension also need explicit teaching.

Bowers (2020) challenges the claim that systematic phonics has been shown to be superior to common alternative approaches. His argument is not that children should avoid learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences; rather, he argues that the evidence has often been overstated and that existing meta-analyses do not reliably prove that systematic phonics is better than approaches that also include phonics, morphology, spelling patterns and meaning-based word work.

Wyse and Bradbury (2022) make a related policy argument. Their review and teacher survey conclude that England’s strongly synthetic-phonics-oriented policy is not sufficiently underpinned by the most robust evidence, and that contextualised or balanced instruction is more consistent with the wider research base. Hynds goes further, arguing that the Rose Review used persuasive policy language to justify a narrow synthetic phonics approach despite controversy and disputed evidence. That is a critique of policy discourse as much as a critique of phonics itself.

The fluency literature also supports a broader view. Kuhn et al. (2010) warn that fluency can be narrowed when assessment focuses too heavily on speed and accuracy because these are easier to measure. They argue for a broader understanding that includes phrasing, stress, pace, prosody and comprehension. That matters because a child can pass a decoding check yet still not read with understanding, expression, independence or enjoyment.

Wyse and Hacking’s (2024) Double Helix model builds the comprehensive position directly. It presents reading and writing as intertwined with language, meaning, motivation, text experience and the child’s environment. In the Double Helix model, phonics is prominent, but it is not treated as a separate hurdle to be completed before children progress on to real reading and writing.

So the comprehensive literacy position can be explained as: phonics is necessary, but it should be taught inside a wider literacy curriculum from the beginning, not as a precondition for meaningful reading and writing. Learners need code knowledge, but they also need books, vocabulary, comprehension, writing, discussion, morphology, fluency, motivation and access to real purposes for literacy.

The balanced conclusion

The balanced position does not juxtapose “synthetic phonics first” versus “comprehensive literacy” as if they are opposites. Instead, it distinguishes between explicit code teaching within a rich literacy curriculum and a narrow phonics-first pathway that delays wider literacy experiences.

Fletcher, Savage and Vaughn’s (2021) response to Bowers defends explicit phonics, but they also reject a simple phonics-versus-whole-language argument. They conclude that the better question is how to combine different components of evidence-based reading instruction into an integrated and differentiated approach for each learner.

The evidence supports explicit teaching of phonics, including systematic attention to grapheme-phoneme correspondences, blending and segmenting. However, the evidence does not justify reducing early literacy to synthetic phonics alone, nor does it justify delaying rich reading, writing, vocabulary and comprehension work until phonics is secure. The strongest position is that phonics should be taught explicitly and accessibly within a comprehensive literacy framework. This is especially important for learners who rely on AAC or have complex access needs, because literacy is not only a school skill but a route to independent, generative communication. Additionally, this group of learners, because of their access needs and multiple other challenges, may take longer to achieve literacy milestones which may take them beyond the age at which any proponent of phonics first could defend a phonics only approach.

The evidence for systematic phonics is strongest as an early, beginning-reading intervention, particularly for children in the Reception/KS1 stage. English policy reflects this by placing phonics at the centre of Year 1 and Year 2 word-reading instruction, while expecting the emphasis to shift in KS2 towards fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, morphology, spelling, writing and curriculum reading. This does not mean older learners who rely on AAC should be denied phonics. It means they should receive phonics where it is still needed, but not through an age-inappropriate “phonics first and everything else later” pathway. For older AAC users, phonics should sit inside a comprehensive, age-respectful literacy programme that includes real reading, writing, vocabulary, comprehension, spelling and access to meaningful curriculum content.

Prerequisites to learning literacy for students who rely on AAC

Instead of beginning with, ‘Which phonics phase is the learner on?’, we need to first establish whether the learner can access the learning materials they need. Can they reach, use and take part in the literacy activity in a meaningful way?

A speaking child may hear a word, say the sounds, blend them and respond. An AAC user may need to hold the target in memory, control eye-gaze or switches, wait for scanning, navigate to letters or symbols, manage prediction choices and then select a response. The learner is not just doing phonics; they are doing phonics plus motor planning, visual search, timing, working memory, access and communication.

Synthetic phonics often works through pace. It can be fast, verbal and output driven. Learners are expected to hear, rehearse, repeat, blend, segment and respond quickly. This is supported by government guidance which emphasises short, frequent, high-quality phonics sessions. That pace may be appropriate for many young speaking children, but this is not necessarily so for a learner who needs much longer to process, plan and produce a response.

Having some speech does not solve this. A learner may be able to produce some spoken sounds but still be unable to access a fast verbal phonics lesson.

Speech may be effortful, unclear, slow, motorically unreliable or cognitively draining. The issue is not whether the learner can say a sound; it is whether they can participate in the task at the speed, rhythm and output level required.

This is where cognitive load becomes important. If the response route is too heavy, output may collapse even when comprehension is present. The learner’s cognition may be ahead of the skill they can demonstrate through that task. For AAC users, good teaching reduces the wrong kind of difficulty – motor, memory, speed and access barriers – while keeping the thinking at the appropriate level of demand.

Communication and Learning Enterprises (CandLE) is a not-for-profit organisation that has been working to change how students who rely on AAC and/or have complex access needs can participate in education so that their entry into, experience of, and the outcomes that they derive from the education system are equitable.

The CandLE AARCS model focuses on access, adaptive teaching, reasonable adjustments, cognition and skills as sequentially important in supporting the learner’s ability to show their understanding. The possession of, or access to, an AAC device does not guarantee that the student who relies on AAC will be able to use it without support.