Recognize concerns. Respond early. Follow through.
I enjoyed seeing great information shared during October’s Dyslexia Awareness Month. I still firmly believe that we all need to deepen our awareness and, most importantly, take action to ensure students, parents, and teachers get the support they need.
After decades of research, families should be able to expect that reading difficulties will be noticed, taken seriously, and met with knowledgeable support. Teachers should be given the preparation, resources, and time to provide that support.
Yet families still encounter uncertainty about what to do next, and educators are still asked to meet needs they may not have been adequately prepared to address.
Awareness can help people recognize a concern and challenge a misconception. But its value must extend into what happens afterward.
For this Journey Trail Notes, I want to focus on that next step: how we move from knowing about dyslexia to responding when a child needs help.
Literacy Landmark
Spotlighting strategies and research to support all adults who are a part of a child’s reading growth.
We can identify risk and begin appropriate support before a child experiences years of reading failure.
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability involving persistent difficulties with word reading and/or spelling, including accuracy, speed, or both. It varies across individuals and does not indicate low intelligence or a lack of effort. The International Dyslexia Association’s updated definition also recognizes that its causes are complex and that phonological and morphological processing difficulties are common, but not universal. IDA’s 2025 definition and explanation
Research gives us reason to act early. In an intervention study involving students in first through third grades, Lovett and colleagues found greater benefits for several foundational reading outcomes when the intervention began in first or second grade rather than in third. Earlier support matters; but older students also deserve effective intervention. Lovett et al., 2017
Recognizing reading difficulties requires more than knowing the signs of dyslexia. Teachers also need sufficient knowledge of reading development to interpret assessment information, recognize when students are compensating for weak decoding skills, and identify appropriate instructional responses. Without that knowledge, even well-intentioned educators may overlook difficulties or continue practices that do not address students' underlying needs.
Screening is a starting point, not a diagnosis or an intervention.
A brief screener identifies possible risk. Further assessment helps clarify instructional needs; a comprehensive evaluation addresses broader questions about a learner’s profile and possible disability. Progress monitoring tells us whether instruction is producing sufficient growth. These are related but serve different purposes.
The practical question after a concerning result is: What support will begin, and how will we know whether it is helping?
Resource Roadmap
Offering practical resources that families, teachers, and homeschoolers can use to take the next step.
To understand screening:
The International Dyslexia Association’s Universal Screening: K–2 Reading explains the purposes of screening, instructional assessment, progress monitoring, and diagnostic evaluation.
To understand early reading instruction:
The Institute of Education Sciences’ Foundational Skills practice guide summary outlines instruction in language, speech sounds and their connections to letters, decoding, and daily connected-text reading.
To understand support for older students:
The Institute’s Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9 addresses multisyllabic word reading, fluency, comprehension, and supported work with challenging text.
Use these resources to make conversations more specific: Which skill needs attention? What will instruction include? Who will provide it? When will progress be reviewed?
Practical Pathways for Supporting Learners with Dyslexia
These pathways connect noticing with responding. Home practice can reinforce instruction, but families should not have to design an intervention on their own.
Trail Tots (Birth–5)
Focus: Support early development and bring persistent concerns forward.
For babies and toddlers, share books, songs, gestures, and responsive conversation. Follow their attention and give them time to respond.
As preschoolers become ready, explore rhymes, syllables, letters, and their sounds through brief, playful interactions.
Pay attention to patterns over time, including persistent language difficulties, difficulty learning letter names and sounds when taught, and a family history of dyslexia. An isolated difficulty with rhyming does not establish dyslexia.
Take action:
Share persistent concerns with a pediatrician, speech-language pathologist, or early childhood team. Ask what assessment or follow-up is appropriate rather than relying on reassurance without a plan.
Why it matters:
Early concerns deserve attention, while expectations must fit the child’s age, language experience, and development. The goal is useful support, not turning everyday play into testing.
Trailblazers (Grades K–3)
Focus: Connect assessment with explicit instruction.
If a child struggles to connect sounds with letters, blend sounds to read words, spell taught patterns, or read accurately and fluently, ask for specific information about those skills.
Instruction should explain and model what the learner needs to know, provide guided practice and corrective feedback, and build systematically on earlier learning.
For example, when teaching ship, an adult can explain that the word has three sounds—/sh/ /i/ /p/—and that the letters sh work together to represent the first sound. The child can then practice reading and spelling words using patterns already taught.
Take action:
Ask for a clear instructional plan:
Which skills need support?
What instruction will address them, and how often?
How will progress be measured?
When will we meet to review the results?
Begin appropriate instructional support while assessment questions are being addressed.
Why it matters:
A screening score becomes useful when it changes instruction. The IES foundational reading guide recommends explicit work connecting sounds and letters, decoding and spelling words, and reading connected text.
Trail Masters (Grades 4–8)
Focus: Address continuing reading needs while preserving access to learning.
An older student may read accurately but very slowly, struggle with unfamiliar words and spelling, or expend considerable effort completing reading assignments. Those patterns warrant closer examination; they do not establish a diagnosis on their own.
Assessment should help determine whether the student needs instruction in decoding, spelling, fluency, language comprehension, or a combination.
For a student who needs word-reading support, instruction might include identifying a familiar prefix, reading the remaining syllables, blending the word, and checking its meaning in the sentence.
Alongside instruction, consider supports such as text-to-speech, audiobooks, or additional time according to the learner’s needs. Access to age-appropriate ideas should continue while reading skills develop.
Take action:
Review current skills, instructional history, progress, and the student’s own experience. Ask both “What instruction is needed?” and “What would make learning more accessible now?”
Why it matters:
Older students benefit from targeted intervention, including instruction in complex word reading and purposeful fluency practice. Support should also build vocabulary, knowledge, and comprehension.
How to Use This Across Settings
Parents and caregivers: Bring specific observations to your child’s school and ask for understandable explanations of assessment results. Leave conversations with a next step and a date to revisit it.
Teachers: Connect assessment findings with instruction, document the response, and seek additional expertise when progress is insufficient. Families need to hear what you are noticing and what you are doing about it.
Homeschoolers: Use assessment tools appropriate for the child and administer them as intended. Seek qualified assessment or instructional help when difficulties persist. An online checklist can organize concerns, but it cannot diagnose dyslexia.
School and district leaders: Ensure that screening leads to timely instructional decisions, staff has the training and resources to respond, and progress is reviewed. Completing a screening requirement is only the beginning.
Why This Matters
Children should not have to demonstrate years of difficulty before adults respond. Families should not have to become reading specialists to understand the help their child needs. Teachers need more than an expectation to recognize dyslexia; they need preparation and practical support.
We also need to listen to students. Their effort, frustration, interests, and strengths belong in the conversation alongside assessment results.
A meaningful outcome is a child receiving appropriate instruction sooner, a family understanding the next step, or a teacher getting the support needed to change a student’s reading progress.
That is the follow-through I want Journey to Better Reading to help make possible.
