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Datasets:
lsadouk1111
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PhonEx

Tasks:
Text Retrieval
Text Classification
Modalities:
Tabular
Text
Formats:
json
Languages:
French
Arabic
Size:
< 1K
Tags:
dyslexia
phonics
French
children
reading difficulties
educational NLP
Libraries:
Datasets
pandas
Polars
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metadata 
language:
  - fr
  - ar
license: cc-by-nc-4.0
task_categories:
  - text-retrieval
  - text-classification
pretty_name: PhonEx - French Phonics Exercise Corpus for Dyslexia
size_categories:
  - n<1K
tags:
  - dyslexia
  - phonics
  - French
  - children
  - reading difficulties
  - educational NLP
  - retrieval
  - CASS
  - Moroccan French
  - special education

PhonEx — French Phonics Exercise Corpus for Dyslexia

Dataset Description

PhonEx is a structured corpus of French-language phonics exercises for children aged 6–9 with reading difficulties including dyslexia, annotated for phonological difficulty level and primary error type. It is designed for constraint-aware exercise retrieval — matching a parent's or teacher's free-text description of a child's reading difficulty to the most appropriate remediation exercise.

The corpus supports the CASS (Context-Aware Semantic Similarity) framework — a lightweight safety-aware retrieval system that prevents pedagogically dangerous mismatches (e.g. assigning a difficulty-level-5 paragraph exercise to a child at difficulty level 1).

  • Paper: CASS: A Context-Aware Semantic Similarity Framework for Safe Retrieval in Child-Facing Educational Applications (Sadouk and Gadi)
  • GitHub: https://github.com/lsadouk/CASS
  • Application: Lecture Magique — French phonics learning app for dyslexic children
  • Target curriculum: Moroccan primary school CP–CE1 (ages 6–9)

Dataset Summary

Property Value
Total entries 100
Error types 5
Difficulty levels 1–5
Balance 4 entries per error type × difficulty combination (perfectly balanced)
Age groups CP (6–7), CE1 (7–8), CE2 (8–9)
Language French
License CC BY-NC 4.0

Supported Tasks

  • Exercise retrieval — match a parent/teacher's free-text description of reading difficulty to the most appropriate phonics exercise
  • Difficulty classification — predict phonological difficulty level from exercise description
  • Error type classification — predict error type from exercise description or parent query

Dataset Structure

Fields

Field Type Description
id string Unique identifier e.g. ex_vc_003
ERR_TYPE string Primary error type targeted (see taxonomy below)
DIFF int Phonological difficulty 1–5
AGE_GROUP int Target age group: 1=CP/6-7, 2=CE1/7-8, 3=CE2/8-9
description string 2–4 sentence English description of the exercise
child_instruction string Simplified French instruction shown to the child
ERR_SECONDARY string or null Secondary error type if applicable
language string fr
target_population string children_with_dyslexia_age_6_9
annotator_agreed bool Annotation confirmed by domain reviewer
version string Corpus version

Error Type Taxonomy

ERR_TYPE Description Count
visual_confusion Confusion between visually similar letters (b/d, p/q, m/n) 20
vowel_substitution Substitution of vowel sounds (o→ou, eu→ou, an→en) 20
syllable_omission Omission or addition of syllables in words 20
letter_reversal Reversal or transposition of letter order within words 20
blending_difficulty Difficulty blending phonemes into syllables or words 20

Difficulty Distribution

DIFF Description Count
1 Isolated letters or simple CV syllables 20
2 Simple CVC words and two-syllable words 20
3 Two-syllable words in sentences, short texts 20
4 Sentences, reading aloud, connected text 20
5 Paragraphs, fluency, academic vocabulary 20

Example Entries 

{
  "id": "ex_vc_001",
  "ERR_TYPE": "visual_confusion",
  "DIFF": 1,
  "AGE_GROUP": 1,
  "description": "The child confuses the letters b and d when reading
    simple CVC words like 'bal' and 'dal'. The exercise shows large
    isolated letters b and d side by side and asks the child to point
    to the correct one when the teacher says the sound. Visual cues
    and colour coding help distinguish the two letters.",
  "child_instruction": "Regarde les lettres. Montre-moi la lettre 'b'.",
  "ERR_SECONDARY": null,
  "language": "fr",
  "target_population": "children_with_dyslexia_age_6_9",
  "annotator_agreed": true,
  "version": "1.0"
}

{
  "id": "ex_bd_009",
  "ERR_TYPE": "blending_difficulty",
  "DIFF": 5,
  "AGE_GROUP": 3,
  "description": "Severe blending difficulty at sentence level — the
    child loses sentence meaning while decoding individual words,
    reading in a slow monotone that prevents comprehension. Exercise
    uses prosodic reading support — stress marks, rhythm bars, and
    pause symbols are printed above the text.",
  "child_instruction": "Suis les marques au-dessus du texte: accent fort,
    barre de rythme, pause. Lis avec la mélodie.",
  "ERR_SECONDARY": null,
  "language": "fr",
  "target_population": "children_with_dyslexia_age_6_9",
  "annotator_agreed": true,
  "version": "1.0"
}

Usage 

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("lamyaa/PhonEx")

# All entries
print(f"Total entries: {len(ds['train'])}")

# Filter by error type
visual = [e for e in ds['train'] if e['ERR_TYPE'] == 'visual_confusion']
blending = [e for e in ds['train'] if e['ERR_TYPE'] == 'blending_difficulty']

# Filter by difficulty level
beginners = [e for e in ds['train'] if e['DIFF'] == 1]
advanced  = [e for e in ds['train'] if e['DIFF'] == 5]

# Filter by age group
cp_level = [e for e in ds['train'] if e['AGE_GROUP'] == 1]

Use with CASS retrieval 

# See full code in: https://github.com/lsadouk/CASS

# English description
retrieve_phonex("My child confuses b and d when reading simple words")
# → ex_vc_003 (visual_confusion, DIFF=2)

# French description
retrieve_phonex("Elle saute des syllabes dans les mots longs")
# → ex_so_006 (syllable_omission, DIFF=3)

# Moroccan Darija
retrieve_phonex("Weldi ma iqrach mezyan, kayqra harf harf")
# → ex_bd_001 (blending_difficulty, DIFF=1)

Safety Properties

PhonEx is designed with pedagogical safety in mind. The DIFF and ERR_TYPE annotations enable the CASS framework to prevent dangerous mismatches:

  • A child at DIFF=1 (isolated letters) will never receive a DIFF=5 exercise (paragraph fluency) — which would cause immediate failure and frustration
  • An exercise targeting visual_confusion will never be retrieved for a child with syllable_omission — providing zero therapeutic benefit
  • Safety filtering is automatic — no teacher or parent configuration required

Across 6 diagnostic queries:

  • C_DIFF (difficulty): 13 dangerous entries suppressed, mean rank drop 25.3 positions, max 69 positions
  • C_ERR (error type): 15 dangerous entries suppressed, mean rank drop 55.7 positions, max 78 positions

Annotation Guidelines

DIFF scale:

  • DIFF=1: Isolated letter or phoneme recognition, single sound discrimination
  • DIFF=2: Simple CVC words, two-syllable words in isolation
  • DIFF=3: Words in sentences, short connected text, specific error patterns
  • DIFF=4: Reading aloud in connected text, under time or social pressure
  • DIFF=5: Extended paragraphs, fluency, academic vocabulary, multiple simultaneous errors

ERR_TYPE selection: Each exercise targets one primary error type. Exercises with meaningful secondary error involvement include an ERR_SECONDARY field. The five error types are mutually exclusive as primary categories but share some underlying phonological mechanisms — used in the CASS C_ERR partial overlap scoring (score 0.5 for related types, 0.0 for unrelated).

Partial overlap pairs:

  • visual_confusion ↔ letter_reversal (both involve letter-level processing)
  • blending_difficulty ↔ syllable_omission (both involve syllable-level processing)
  • blending_difficulty ↔ vowel_substitution (both involve phoneme-grapheme mapping)

Citation 

@article{sadouk2025cass,
  title     = {CASS: A Context-Aware Semantic Similarity Framework
               for Safe Retrieval in Child-Facing Educational Applications},
  author    = {Sadouk, Lamyaa},
  journal   = {Education and Information Technologies},
  year      = {2025},
  publisher = {Springer}
}

Dataset Card Authors

Lamyaa Sadouk Ecole Marocaine des Sciences de l'Ingénieur, Casablanca, Morocco

Taoufiq Gadi Laboratoire de Recherche en Mathématique, Informatique et Sciences de l'Ingénieur (MISI), Morocco

License

CC BY-NC 4.0 — Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International

You may use and share this dataset for research and educational purposes with attribution. Commercial use is not permitted without explicit permission from the author.