The elephant in the phonics room: rethinking pronunciation norms in early reading instruction

Phonics instruction has been re-emphasised in contemporary literacy policy as the foundation of early reading, reinforced through major reports and curriculum reforms. Grounded in the alphabetic principle, phonics teaches grapheme-phoneme correspondences to support decoding. Yet despite its prominence, limited attention has been paid to assumptions about spoken English that shape how phonics is taught and assessed. Many phonics practices, particularly synthetic phonics and oral phonics screening