Written by Sandie Barrie Blackley, Speech-Language Pathologist
Published on September 29th, 2026
Key Takeaways
Ashley's 14-year-old son loved listening to and discussing stories that his mom and dad would read aloud to him. He was always an active participant in class, but he struggled with independent reading.
Since 2nd grade, he had been pulled out for reading interventions. He attended the same school where his mom was a teacher, and she had faith that the intervention would eventually work. But he kept falling further and further behind academically.
Finally, when her son was going into 8th grade, Ashley knew she needed to do something different. When her son was screened for dyslexia, she was shocked to learn he could not read words beyond a 1st-grade reading level.
Dyslexia can be hard to spot because most people with dyslexia have good comprehension when listening, and like Ashley's son, they can often cope by memorizing what they hear in class. Dyslexia is caused by processing difficulties and is not related to a person's intelligence. Read on to learn more about the processing difficulties that are characteristic of dyslexia and how they can be overcome.
Dyslexia is a neurological learning difference that makes reading, spelling, and decoding words difficult.
Dyslexia is a language-processing problem that affects the efficiency with which letters are connected with speech sounds. One of the most common misconceptions is that dyslexia is caused by vision difficulties such as seeing letters or words backward. Letter reversals are normal in beginning readers and are not the defining sign of dyslexia.
Children with dyslexia are often bright, even gifted. They typically learn normally and eagerly through listening or through media that does not involve print. This is an important insight for parents who've been told their child is smart but isn't motivated to read or isn't trying hard enough.
Dyslexia exists on a spectrum. Some people have mild symptoms; others face more significant challenges. People with dyslexia often have an uneven cognitive profile, with some very strong abilities alongside some much weaker ones. For example, a student with dyslexia may have exceptionally strong vocabulary but exceptionally weak working memory.
With science-backed intervention, even students with severe dyslexia can become highly proficient readers and writers.
The current scientific consensus is that dyslexia results from an accumulation of multiple genetic, neurological, and environmental risk factors.
This understanding of the causes of dyslexia is referred to as the Multiple Deficit Model. See Pennington, 2006. The main factors that raise the risk for dyslexia include:
If a child has sufficient cumulative risk factors, they are likely to develop functional reading difficulties. Environmental factors, such as early exposure to oral language and access to structured literacy instruction, can serve as protective factors.
Some factors that do NOT cause dyslexia include poor parenting, screen time, vision problems, and laziness.
Signs of dyslexia vary by age but commonly include difficulty sounding out words, slow or labored reading, avoidance of reading aloud, poor spelling, and trouble connecting letters to their sounds, even in children who seem bright in other areas.
Signs of Dyslexia in Preschool and Kindergarten (Ages 3–6)
Preschool and early school-age children are just beginning to learn the alphabet, how to write letters, and read words. In beginning readers, the symptoms of dyslexia often relate to oral language.
Signs of Dyslexia in Early Elementary School (Ages 6–9)
In elementary school, children are learning to read; symptoms of dyslexia can be seen in how automatically and quickly they identify and write letters and words.
Signs of Dyslexia in Older Children and Teens (Ages 10–18)
For older students, the focus has moved from learning to read to reading to learn. Symptoms of dyslexia in older students and adults are evident in how automatically and easily they use literacy to learn, organize, and accomplish daily activities.
Yes. But the exact term used to identify dyslexia varies by setting.
In the USA, public schools operate under federal special education law—specifically the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA uses Specific Learning Disability (SLD) as one of its 13 official eligibility categories for qualifying a student for an Individualized Education Program (IEP).
A public school student can be classified as having a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) in Basic Reading Skills, Reading Fluency, or Reading Comprehension.
While virtually all U.S. public school districts now recognize the term dyslexia for descriptive purposes in screening and evaluations, SLD remains the mandatory federal classification on official special education records.
In healthcare and clinical settings, practitioners use one of two classification systems: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). In both classification systems, dyslexia is classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder. In the DSM-5, dyslexia is classified as a "Specific" (Specific Learning Disorder), whereas in ICD-11 it is classified as a "Developmental" (Developmental Learning Disorder).
Dyslexia frequently co-occurs with other learning differences, including ADHD, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. Having more than one of these doesn't mean a harder road. Rather, it means a comprehensive evaluation is needed to identify each area of difficulty so intervention can be targeted accurately.
| Condition | What It Affects | How It Relates to Dyslexia |
|---|---|---|
| ADHD | Attention, focus, self-regulation | Co-occurs in an estimated 22.6% of people with dyslexia |
| Dysgraphia | Handwriting, spelling, written expression | Shares roots in language processing; often appears alongside dyslexia |
| Dyscalculia | Number sense and math | Less common co-occurrence, but can compound academic challenges |
| Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) | Interpretation of non-speech and speech acoustic signals as tested in a soundproof booth by an audiologist | Shares underlying biological risk factors; The overlap in the diagnostic labeling can be confusing. |
To help parents and teachers identify a child's main tripping point(s), Lexercise offers a number of free, online screening tests:
Dyslexia can only be diagnosed through a formal evaluation by a trained professional.
Screeners and at-home tests cannot provide an official diagnosis, but they can identify warning signs and point parents and teachers toward the right kind of help. A formal evaluation should include:
Because diagnostic evaluations are detailed and comprehensive, they are time-consuming and costly.
Since this level of detail is not necessary for effective intervention, it may make sense to start with a Reading & Spelling Inventory, which can provide a roadmap for intervention at a much lower cost.
Based on the Science of Reading, dyslexia is most effectively treated with structured literacy intervention — a systematic, evidence-aligned approach that explicitly teaches how sounds connect to letters in words.
With this type of intervention, people with dyslexia can become highly proficient readers and writers. While dyslexia can not be cured, it can be overcome!
Structured literacy is an evidence-based approach to establishing reading and writing proficiency. It is defined by what is taught and how it is taught. What is taught focuses on the structural elements of language.
For English, the fundamental structural elements are:
How structured literacy is taught focuses on active learning and deliberate practice.
Active learning is enabled through a system with these five features:
The first three of the five "how to" features describe how concepts are taught in lessons. The last two, which describe how the student engages with a curriculum, can be challenging because they require a system that provides ongoing data tracking for each individual. The last feature, deliberate, distributed practice, is especially important as it is necessary for mastering any complex skill without cognitive burnout. The chart below compares deliberate practice to naïve repetition.
| Feature | Naïve Repetition | Deliberate Practice |
|---|---|---|
| Mindset | Errors viewed as failures; Passive execution | Errors viewed as opportunities for improvement; Intense |
| Focus | Practicing what is already comfortable | Pushing specifically on areas of weaknesses |
| Feedback | Delayed, vague, or absent | Immediate, explicit, and actionable |
| Goal | Completion, comfort, and fun | Systematic growth and skill refinement |
Unlike older, so-called balanced literacy approaches—which often encouraged children to guess unfamiliar words using pictures, initial letters, or context clues—structured literacy focuses on orthographic mapping. It trains the brain to connect sounds to print, turning unfamiliar words into automatically recognized sight words.
By building strong word-recognition (decoding) skills alongside deep language comprehension (vocabulary and syntax), structured literacy unlocks fluent reading and deep text comprehension for all learners.
The transition from balanced literacy toward structured literacy is being driven by cognitive neuroscience and reading research, collectively referred to as the Science of Reading.
| Feature | Structured Literacy (Orton-Gillingham) |
Balanced Literacy |
|---|---|---|
| Core Philosophy | Reading is an acquired skill requiring explicit, systematic instruction and adequate practice to establish automatic neurolinguistic processing. | Reading is a natural process acquired through exposure to rich literature and fostered by following the child's interests. |
| Instructional Approach | Elements that enable proficient reading and writing, including sounds and letters, are taught in cumulative and logical order. | Phonics is often taught incidentally as words arise in text. The assumption is that proficiency will be established mainly through exposure to texts. |
| Word Recognition Strategy | Students are encouraged to sound out unknown words and, if their first attempt does not yield a word they recognize, to try again using a different letter pronunciation when letters can be pronounced several ways. | Students are prompted to guess at unknown words using context, pictures, or partial clues, such as the first letter. |
| Text Type Used | Frequent practice with decodable passages, containing a high percentage of words with only the letter-sounds that have explicitly been taught so far. | Books are provided based on a formula that relies on features such as the number of pictures per page and the lengths of sentences and words. |
| Target Population | Essential for struggling readers (e.g., dyslexia) and beneficial for all learners. | Works to some degree for the roughly 30%–40% of children who learn to read without explicit instruction, but leaves struggling readers behind. |
Structured literacy can be provided in a variety of settings. For example, Lexercise has a system designed for schools and two options for home use.
If your child is struggling to read despite effort and instruction, an assessment is worth pursuing at any age. Assessment doesn't have to be expensive or time-consuming. Earlier support leads to faster progress, but it's never too late to get help.
Parents of struggling readers often get well-meaning advice to wait and see. Children do develop at different rates, but if a pattern of struggle persists past first grade, or if a child shows signs of avoidance, anxiety, or exhaustion around reading, that's a red flag worth acting on.
Completing an online dyslexia screener is quick, easy, and free.
No. Dyslexia is a lifelong neurological difference, not a condition that can be cured. But with the right structured literacy instruction, most people with dyslexia improve significantly. Many go on to become strong readers, successful students, and accomplished adults.
Yes. Dyslexia tends to run in families. Research suggests that if one parent has dyslexia, a child has roughly a 50% chance of having it too. A family history of reading difficulty is one of the key risk factors for dyslexia.
No. Dyslexia has no connection to intelligence. Many people with dyslexia are gifted. They simply have a brain that processes written language differently. The definition of dyslexia has included the idea that the reading struggles are "unexpected" specifically because the reading difficulty is so disproportionate to a person's overall cognitive ability.
Yes. Dyslexia is lifelong — people don't outgrow it. Some adults were never formally identified as children, particularly if they developed strong compensation strategies. Adult dyslexia often shows up as slow reading speed, reading fatigue, difficulty with spelling, a preference for video and other visual media, or avoidance of reading, especially in public.
Not all struggling readers have dyslexia, and not all children with dyslexia read at the same pace. The key distinction is that dyslexia typically involves specific difficulties connecting letters to sounds (struggles with phonological processing, decoding, and spelling) rather than simply reading below grade level.
A professional can help determine whether a child's challenges are consistent with dyslexia or may have another cause.
No. While reading is the most visible challenge, dyslexia can also affect spelling, letter formation, writing, and — for some children — working memory and organizational skills.
Because untreated dyslexia can impact what and how much a person reads, over time it can impact vocabulary, a person's fund of knowledge, and their ability to think critically. It is common for children with dyslexia to also experience low self-confidence or anxiety around academic tasks. Untreated dyslexia acts as a social and systemic risk factor for both physical and mental health.
A learning disability is a neurological condition that affects how a person processes certain types of information — not a reflection of intelligence or effort.
It doesn't mean a child can't learn; it means they may learn differently, and often need targeted instruction that matches how their brain works. Dyslexia is the most common learning disability.
Neurological means the condition originates in the brain — specifically in how brain circuits are organized.
Dyslexia is not caused by laziness, diet, vision problems, poor teaching, or poor parenting. Because it's neurological in origin, it responds to structured, systematic instruction that works with the brain's wiring rather than against it.
Written word recognition is the ability to quickly and accurately identify and make sense of written words. Difficulty with word recognition is often one of the earliest signs of dyslexia.
Fluent readers recognize most words automatically; children with dyslexia often have to decode each word laboriously, which slows reading and makes comprehension harder.
A phonological deficit means difficulty distinguishing and working with the individual sounds in spoken words — for example, differentiating "tap" and "tab" or "stick" and "sick".
Phonological processing is the foundation of learning to read, and when a child struggles to hear and manipulate speech sounds, connecting those sounds to letters in writing becomes significantly harder. This is considered the core underlying difficulty in most (but not all) cases of dyslexia.
In a dyslexia diagnosis, "unexpected" means the reading difficulty is disproportionate to the child's overall abilities. The student is as capable as their peers in some areas, so their reading struggles are unexpected.
The gap demonstrated by a child who seems bright and curious in conversation but struggles with the written code is exactly what the word "unexpected" is meant to capture.
Reading comprehension is the ability to understand and make meaning from written text — not just to decode the words, but to grasp what they communicate.
Dyslexia primarily affects decoding, but when decoding is effortful, slow, and labored, comprehension suffers too. So much mental effort goes into processing individual words that following the passage's meaning becomes much harder. With the right intervention, both improve.
Parents of struggling readers commonly express confusion and frustration as they try to navigate a way forward. Fortunately, among all the challenges a child can face in today's world, dyslexia can be one of the most manageable with the right help.
This free and easy dyslexia test can give you the information you need to take the first step to finding the right intervention for your child: Dyslexia Screener.
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