Phonics assessment and practice, built for the reality of busy classrooms.

PHAT takes the friction out of phonics assessment. After completing an assessment, the tool automatically keeps a record of the grapheme-phoneme correspondences each child knows and doesn't know. A QR code is generated containing information about which correspondences need to be practised and which student completed the assessment. The student scans the code, completes the targeted tasks, and the results are fed back to the teacher.

How does it work?

The teacher chooses which set of graphemes to begin the assessment with. The sets follow a standard phonics teaching order by default, and a school can regroup and reorder them to suit whichever phonics programme it follows.

The demo below is a working copy of the assessment screen in the teacher app. Scroll down for a guided tour of each part, or start tapping straight away.

After completing a set, the teacher is prompted to start the next set or they can end the assessment. The teacher is also prompted to end the assessment after five unknown grapheme-phoneme correspondences have been identified. The results of the assessment are saved for the teacher, and a video of the assessment can be exported to be shared with parents.

Once the assessment has ended, a QR code is generated for that student. There is no need for a separate login: the link generated can be accessed from any device. The student simply scans the code (or clicks the link, if their device can't read QR codes) and they are presented with activities to work on filling the gaps in their knowledge.

The activity screen

The activity screen is divided into four quadrants. The first shows the grapheme and, when tapped, the student hears the corresponding phoneme. The second contains an exposure deck of cards with words that use the target grapheme. The third shows pictures of three of those words: tap one to hear it, then attempt to spell it using the virtual keyboard in the fourth quadrant, which contains all the vowels plus the consonants needed to spell the target words.

This demo leaves out the read-aloud step from the full app. In PHAT, once a child completes these tasks they can also read the words aloud, with PHAT listening and checking their pronunciation before sending results to the teacher. Schools choose whether to switch this on.

The results of the tasks are sent to the teacher so they can review progress.

PHAT Reports: progress across the whole school

Every assessment feeds into PHAT Reports. Teachers and school leaders sign in with their usual PHAT account and see the same records from four angles:

• School. How many pupils are on track, need monitoring or need intervention; how the whole school has moved between check points across the year; a breakdown by year group; and a list of children to look at now. Children are flagged by their rate of progress, not attainment alone, so a child who is behind but catching up is not on the list.
• Class. Every pupil against every grapheme taught so far. Read down a column to find a teaching gap, or across a row to find a child. The graphemes the class is weakest on are listed underneath as the ones to teach next.
• Child. One child's progress against what is expected for their year group, check by check, with the graphemes they have secured, the ones still open, and a suggested next step based on those gaps.
• Movement. Each child shown in the set they should be working on now. Step through the year to watch them move, with a trail showing where they were at the previous check. Tap a name to see which sounds are still open for them.

Each child is measured against the set expected for their year group at that point in the year:

Both the expected sets and these cut-offs are school settings, so they can be matched to the school's own programme and calendar.

Try it below with sample data for an invented school of 87 pupils across Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. Use the tabs along the top to switch between the four views. Nothing here comes from a real school.