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Effective Literacy Practices

Supporting Students Exhibiting Characteristics of Dyslexia


What is Dyslexia?

Students are often diagnosed with dyslexia when they have difficulty learning to read in the first few years of school. According to the International Dyslexia Association, dyslexia is defined as a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. Students who are dyslexic struggle with the phonological component of language — matching sounds to their corresponding letters and breaking words into parts for understanding and pronunciation. These difficulties are often unexpected in relation to a student’s other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Additional consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge. Students with dyslexia can have trouble reading quickly and automatically. While people with dyslexia may be slower readers, they are typically fast, creative thinkers with strong reasoning abilities. 


Dyslexia and Learning to Read

While the prevalence of dyslexia is not known for sure, most experts agree that it affects between 10% to 20% of the population. Dyslexia persists over time and interferes with learning. However, dyslexia does not prevent students from learning to read. Students with dyslexia can learn to read with additional support and intervention focused on developing both foundational decoding skills and language comprehension. They need systematic phonics-based instruction with multiple opportunities to learn and practice phonics skills in a structured manner. Early intervention is key to helping students with dyslexia get the support they need to learn to read and write effectively. To date, 39 states and the District of Columbia, including Arizona, have adopted mandatory dyslexia screening to identify children with characteristics of dyslexia as early as possible.


Effective and Ineffective Instruction

Unfortunately, dyslexic students have been at a disadvantage when it comes to having appropriate instruction to meet their needs as young learners learning to read in school. Many popular and widely-used literacy approaches and curricula do not work well for students with dyslexia.

  • Despite its popularity among educators since the 1990s, a body of evidence has found the Whole Language approach to be ineffective for students with dyslexia.
  • In addition, research shows that Balanced Literacy approaches do not produce strong results among children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities either.

In contrast, when children are learning to read, instruction in direct foundational skills aligned to the science of reading is promising for students with dyslexia and other reading-related learning disabilities. More recent research on direct phonics instruction finds it to be more effective than other approaches in helping to prevent reading difficulties among students with dyslexia.

Once again, students exhibiting characteristics of dyslexia benefit from the same, evidence-based instructional strategies that all developing readers need: direct, explicit instruction in the foundational skills of literacy, with emphasis on systematic phonics instruction.

Find evidence-based instructional Strategies, Practices and Tools as well as Interventions to support students who are struggling with specific foundational literacy skills.


Supporting Students Exhibiting Characteristics of Dyslexia in Subject Area Classrooms

A key point to remember about dyslexic students is they will likely need many more opportunities to practice skills and read a text. Because they typically read more slowly, they need more assistance and support with strategies to use during reading in order to learn the information from the text that the teacher wants them to remember. Teachers should provide explicit instruction and scaffolding for using comprehension strategies, learning vocabulary, and understanding text structure. 

The Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity offers the following suggestions to support students who exhibit characteristics of dyslexia:

  • Suggest listening to audiobooks or identify a willing adult to read the assigned book to the student. Recommend that students read along with the audiobook version or to follow the words alongside the reader. The more often a struggling reader is exposed to the way the words look, the better. Exposure to the page helps students learn the architecture of sentences. This also helps with spelling and conventions.
  • Suggest use of assistive technologies currently available that read material aloud to the student. The Kindle, the iPad, or Google’s Nexus tablet, would be examples of this kind of technology, but there are many similar devices being introduced into the market all the time. 
  • If the book/content has been made into a film or covered in a film, suggest that the student watch it to help give a context to the story or content.
  • Offer extra time to finish reading assignments. Dyslexic and struggling readers need more time to read assigned material.
  • Provide class syllabi in advance. Allow the student to read assignments ahead over the school breaks and the summer. This can help the student get a head start so that when the school year takes on its full momentum she is prepared and has had an opportunity to work ahead to absorb the increased volume of work.

Arizona Dyslexia Resources

AZ Technical Assistance Dyslexia Handbook
The Arizona Department of Education’s Dyslexia Handbook is designed for teachers and administrators to help them recognize characteristics constant with dyslexia and how to aid students with dyslexia. Educators at all levels must have a deep understanding of reading to pinpoint gaps in student learning. This document also provides technical assistance to support families.

Dyslexia Resource Guide for Families
Read On Arizona’s Dyslexia Resource Guide for Families provides an overview of the definition of dyslexia, characteristics constant with dyslexia by age, and how families can support their child with dyslexia. It also provides a helpful question-and-answer section.


Sources

Child Mind Institute, Caroline Miller, How to Teach Kids with Dyslexia to Read.

Bellwether, January 2024, Kelly Robson Foster, Tanvi Kodali, Bonnie O’Keefe, Andrew J. Rotherham, and Andy Jacob, On the Same Page: A Primer on the Science of Reading and Its Future for Policymakers, School Leaders, and Advocates.

National Center on Improving Literacy, State of Dyslexia.

International Dyslexia Association, Definition of Dyslexia.

Arizona Department of Education, Dyslexia.

Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, Kyle Redford, 2014, Kids Can’t Wait: Strategies to Support Struggling Readers.