“If a student is nonspeaking, can they learn to read?”
Over the course of my teaching career I’ve been on both sides of this question. When I was a new teacher, I had several students who had been working on academic skills like receptive and expressive ID of pictures, intraverbal responding, complex matching, and even number and letter ID. I was following curriculum progressions like the VB-MAPP and the ABLLS, but would often get stuck when it was clear we needed to move on to more complex academics. I thought my only options were to try Edmark or see if we could do some sight word reading in the natural environment- I didn’t understand how nonverbal reading worked. I never imagined that I could teach my students to work on phonics or even spell. Shame on me, because there were so many students who could’ve received more intensive literacy instruction and did not! Like so many things in education, when we know better, we do better.
Can You Teach Nonspeaking Students to Read with Phonics?
The simple answer is yes! A growing body of research and my experience in the classroom have continued to show that nonspeaking students can successfully engage in nonverbal reading using phonics-based approaches— they just need materials that are able to be adapted for their individual needs.
One question I get asked frequently is what the prerequisite skills are that students need in order to learn to read. Truly, the only real prerequisite for phonics instruction is identifying a reliable access method, such as:
- AAC (augmentative and alternative communication)
- Eye gaze
- Pointing or direct selection
- Sign language
- Verbal approximations
Once a student can indicate a choice, they can begin phonics instruction. It really is as simple as that. You don’t need to wait for their vocabulary to be a certain size, you don’t need to wait for their behavior to look a certain way (more on that later) and you certainly don’t need to wait for them to master other skills before starting phonics instruction.
The Path to Nonverbal Reading
Effective literacy instruction for any learner needs to follow a clear progression based on the Science of Reading. Science of Reading is not the name of a curriculum or a program, but it is a set of principles that the National Reading Panel has shown through research reviews to be the most effective ways of promoting literacy. Nonspeaking learners need to follow a clear progression, as well. Just because they can’t produce verbal output doesn’t mean Science of Reading doesn’t apply to their instruction.
Maybe you have the same approach to reading that I did. You know all students deserve access to phonics instruction, you know the evidence base behind Science of Reading, but you don’t know what to do or how to move forward with your students. There are some programs you can buy that walk you through these progressions, but they can be expensive and their access methods might not be right for your students. If you’ve ever been stuck on how to move your students from one literacy skill to the next, this is the framework you need to follow. What makes this framework so powerful? Each step builds on the last while maintaining access through alternative response methods.
1. Letter-Sound Correspondence
Students begin by learning to identify individual letter sounds. It is important that learners NOT be taught the letter names. You do not need to know the name of a letter to spell or begin nonverbal reading, and it can prove to be more confusing (especially with vowels) if you have to learn the various sounds in addition to their names. It is recommended that you start with short vowels and consonants, then long vowels, then blends, until all 44 sounds are taught.
What this looks like:
- The teacher says a sound
- The student selects the correct letter using their access method
- Choices are presented in a small field (2–4 options)
- Sounds are taught one at a time
This stage builds the foundation for all future decoding skills. I would start with 4 sounds that are used in many different, basic words so that students can begin reading as quickly as possible.
2. Phoneme Segmentation
Next, students learn to identify individual sounds within words. Phoneme segmentation is the skill of identifying individual sounds in a word. This can be tricky for our nonspeaking students because phoneme segmentation is a very abstract skill. To begin to develop their understanding of phonemes as the building blocks of words, or phonemic awareness, take the 4 letter sounds you previously taught and apply them like this:
What this looks like:
- Start with initial sounds
- Use meaningful, familiar words or images
- Label each picture then say the target initial sound
- Students select the picture that starts with this initial sound
This helps students understand that words are made up of smaller sound units.
Another way to build phonemic awareness is to give students a visual for how sounds are represented. The most common way this is done in classrooms is using counters.
What this looks like:
- The teacher says the sounds in a word
- As she says each sound, she puts a counter onto a display board
- The teacher gives the target sound
- Students select the counter that represents the target sound
When introducing this task, I would only start with the initial sound as it is the easiest to hold in our working memory. As students get more proficient with this activity, you can introduce medial and ending sounds.
3. Sound Blending
Once students can isolate sounds, they begin combining them. Sound blending is the skill of identifying the sounds in words, blending them in your head or out loud, and correctly identifying the word. Sound blending is still possible for our students who are nonspeaking. The key is to model for the student subvocal rehearsal, or the inner voice in our head. This can be accommodated for nonspeaking students using a phonetic keyboard, using big Mac switches programmed with sounds, or simply providing verbal modeling.
What this looks like:
- The teacher slowly sounds out a word
- The student blends the sounds mentally
- The student selects the correct word or image
Blending is a critical bridge between phonemic awareness and reading. Again, we are only teaching sound blending with sounds previously taught. You do not need to wait for a student to have more than a few letter-sounds mastered to work on sound blending.
4. Decoding
Decoding puts all the pieces together to start to recognize words! At this stage of nonverbal reading, students apply segmentation and blending skills to read words and indicate their meaning.
What this looks like:
- Students “sound out” words internally
- Responses are shown through selection (not speech)
- Choices may include pictures, written words, or symbols
Decoding allows students to move beyond memorization into true reading. The ability to decode will allow your students to identify words they encounter they have not been previously taught. When working on decoding, it is helpful to pair the words with lots of pictures to cement vocabulary understanding. For this reason, decoding concrete nouns and verbs is a helpful place to start.
5. Sight Word Recognition
Not all words follow phonetic rules. Students also need exposure to high frequency sight words, irregular spelling patterns, and longer complex words related to their interests. For example, we would not expect a beginner reader to decode the word “Transformers”, but working on sight word recognition for this highly preferred interest will increase buy-in. Sight words need to be integrated into a nonverbal reading program, but they shouldn’t be the whole focus. The key to sight word recognition is automatic recognition.
What this looks like:
- Student is presented with words in an array or on a page
- The teacher says the target word
- The student indicates the word using their access method
Common linking words and pronouns are great places to start when working on sight word recognition. Make sure to include words related to the student’s interests, as well.
6. Shared Reading
In shared reading activities, students begin interacting with connected text in a supported way. An adult will facilitate the majority of the interaction with the book, but the student will be given select opportunities to practice their decoding or word recognition skills. This is also the time to introduce basic comprehension questions about the texts. It is very important when beginning to engage in shared nonverbal reading to use highly motivating, interest-based texts, only focus on one known word per sentence or page, and emphasize word meaning not just word identification. This stage is very important to build confidence and buy-in that reading is important!
What this looks like:
- While reading a preferred text, use your finger to track the words read on the page
- Pause to ask questions about the book, providing wait time for the student to answer by pointing to/looking at pictures or using their AAC device
- Pause at known words, allowing the student to practice decoding or recognizing the word
7. Reading Sentences
Once a student has enough single words their can recognize or decode, it is time to work on understanding full sentences.
Students demonstrate comprehension by:
- Selecting matching pictures
- Answering WH questions
- Using AAC or other response methods
For example, you might display the sentence, “Pooh sat on a hat” and display 2 pictures showing Pooh sitting on a hat or Pooh sitting on a cat. You could also do the opposite and display 1 picture but two sentences. The student will select the correct picture or sentence, demonstrating they correctly decoded or recognized all the words in the sentence.
8. Reading Comprehension
Finally, students are ready to develop deeper comprehension skills as the final piece of nonverbal reading. When working on comprehension, it is important to target both WH questions and inferential thinking questions. This stage can be difficult for learners to grasp, and for that reason it is important to utilize lots of modeling and minimize the amount of “testing” in a reading lesson.
What this looks like:
- Asking a question and allowing the student to indicate their answer through picture, symbol, or word selection
- Providing a decodable comprehension question
- Asking yes/no questions about a story
Instructional Strategies That Make This Work
The nonverbal reading approach relies heavily on explicit, systematic instruction.
Effective teaching includes:
- Clear modeling of each skill
- Errorless learning opportunities
- Gradual increase in complexity
- Consistent opportunities to respond
- Utilizing motivating texts
Key Pointers
When beginning nonverbal reading instruction in your classroom, there are several pointers to keep in mind:
- Students do not need to master all their letter sounds to move on to the other steps of the progression. In fact, doing so would make learning new words more difficult. The more quickly a student can encode a word to their long term memory, the more proficient their reading will be
- This is a progression, but not a strict, prescriptive plan. Students need to have shared reading opportunities even before they have mastered any letter sounds or decoding
- Thirty minutes a day of literacy instruction is a great place to start. Adjust instructional blocks to accommodate the learner’s attention and motivation
The Path to Nonverbal Reading
If you found this helpful but are looking for a quick reference guide, I’ve got you covered!
The Path to Nonverbal Reading was designed as a simple, visual guide to help special educators:
- Understand the progression of skills
- Plan instruction intentionally
- Adapt phonics for AAC and alternative response methods
- Build literacy for students who are often overlooked
If you are looking for assistance planning how to teach nonverbal reading, this is a great place to start!
Need more support with nonverbal reading approaches? Send me a note and we’ll problem solve together!