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Evidence Guide
16 min read

Dyslexia

Dyslexia is about accurate, fluent word reading and spelling — not reversed letters or a visual learning style. This guide separates what is known from what is myth, and sets out the teaching and adjustments that actually help.

← Back to the Quick Guide (3–5 minute read)
Reading time
16 min read
Age range
All primary (EYFS–KS2)
Evidence level
High
An open book resting on a wooden primary school table beside a pencil and reading glasses in soft window light.
MoreFor teachers

First, check the teaching

Before a child's difficulty is treated as a within-child characteristic, the honest first question is whether they have had consistent, systematic, high-quality literacy teaching and enough of it. The Rose report was explicit that the response to literacy difficulty starts with quality of teaching, and the EEF places systematic phonics among the highest-impact, lowest-cost approaches available, with the largest gains for children who are struggling.

  • Has the child missed teaching through absence, moves between schools, or a change of scheme?
  • Is phonics teaching consistent, systematic, and applied to books matched to what has been taught?
  • Is there enough practice at the point of difficulty, or only whole-class exposure?
  • Has hearing been checked recently? Intermittent hearing loss is a common and easily missed factor.
  • Is spoken language, including vocabulary, also below expectation? That points somewhere different.
Related
Dyslexia·Building the skill versus removing the barrierDyslexia·Teaching that has evidence behind itDyslexia·Evidence & sources
Classroom indicatorsFor teachers

Classroom indicators

  • Word reading is inaccurate, or accurate but very slow and effortful.
  • Sounds are known in isolation but not applied when reading a text.
  • Spelling is inconsistent, phonetically plausible, or bears little relation to the sounds.
  • A wide gap between oral contribution and written output.
  • Copying from the board is slow and error-prone.
  • Fatigue in the second half of any literacy-heavy lesson.
  • Avoidance behaviour that arrives reliably at the same point in the timetable.
  • Comprehension that is strong when text is read aloud to them and weak when they read it themselves.
A useful diagnostic move

Read the text to the child and re-ask the comprehension questions. If understanding jumps, the barrier is at word level, not at meaning level — and that changes what you teach.

Related
Dyslexia·Evidence & sourcesDyslexia·What helps at homeDyslexia·Evidence & sources
MoreFor teachers

Teaching that has evidence behind it

Systematic, explicit phonics — kept going

For pupils who need it beyond Key Stage 1, continued structured phonics for reading and spelling, taught explicitly, not incidentally. EEF rates phonics as high impact for very low cost on very extensive evidence.

Phonological awareness work where it is weak

Segmenting, blending, manipulating sounds. Most useful in EYFS and KS1, and worth checking rather than assuming in older pupils.

Repeated and paired reading for fluency

Re-reading familiar text, echo reading, timed re-reads. Fluency is a distinct target and it does not arrive on its own.

Explicit spelling and morphology

Teaching patterns, prefixes, suffixes and roots directly, and testing retention over time rather than for Friday.

Vocabulary and background knowledge

Comprehension depends on it, and children who read less get less of it incidentally. This is where a lot of the long-term gap actually opens up.

Modelling and scaffolding writing

Worked examples, sentence stems, planning frames, word banks. Reduces the number of things being juggled at once.

Distributed, structured intervention

Short, frequent, well-trained delivery, tightly linked to classroom teaching — not a generic booster group detached from the curriculum.

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Dyslexia·Evidence & sourcesDyslexia·Building the skill versus removing the barrierDyslexia·Working out what kind of difficulty this is
MoreFor teachers

Building the skill versus removing the barrier

These are two different jobs and both are needed. Intervention aims to improve reading and spelling. Adjustment aims to let a child learn history, science and maths today, while their reading is still developing. Confusing them causes two familiar failures: a child who gets adjustments and no teaching, or a child who gets teaching and is quietly locked out of the rest of the curriculum.

  • Adjustments: reading text aloud, text-to-speech, printed rather than copied notes, extra time, scribing, oral answers, reduced copying, larger spacing, uncluttered worksheets.
  • Intervention: structured phonics, fluency practice, spelling, vocabulary, delivered by someone trained and reviewed regularly.
  • Assessment access: adjustments used routinely in class, so that they are normal practice rather than an unfamiliar arrangement.
  • The test of an adjustment: does it remove a barrier to demonstrating knowledge, without removing the learning?
Watch out

Assistive technology does not replace literacy teaching. It is an access route, and it works best when a child has been taught how to use it properly rather than handed a device.

Related
Dyslexia·Teaching that has evidence behind itDyslexia·Evidence & sourcesDyslexia·Questions parents often ask
MoreFor teachers

Protecting confidence and standing

  • Never require unprepared reading aloud in front of the class.
  • Mark for the thing you are assessing — do not cover a science answer in spelling corrections.
  • Do not display work in ways that make the gap public.
  • Make adjustments ordinary and available, not announced.
  • Give the child roles that use their strengths in front of their peers.
  • Be careful with reading-book levels as a visible ranking system.
Related
Dyslexia·Teaching that has evidence behind itDyslexia·Building the skill versus removing the barrierDyslexia·Questions parents often ask
ResearchFor teachers

Evidence & sources

The teaching does not wait for the label

A child who is struggling to read needs high-quality, structured teaching now. That is true before assessment, during a wait, if the assessment concludes dyslexia, and if it does not. The value of an assessment is a clearer profile and, sometimes, access to arrangements and services — not permission to start teaching properly.

What this guide is, and is not

This is an educational resource. It does not identify or diagnose dyslexia; formal assessment is usually carried out by an educational psychologist or a specialist assessor with an appropriate practising certificate. It is also worth saying plainly that the boundary between dyslexia and other reading difficulties is genuinely debated among researchers. What is not debated is what helps: the teaching is broadly the same whether or not a child has a label.

  1. NHSProfessional guidance
    Dyslexia in children

    Plain-English NHS information for families on what dyslexia is, what is commonly noticed, and where to go for help.

  2. Sir Jim Rose / Department for Children, Schools and FamiliesProfessional guidance
    Identifying and Teaching Children and Young People with Dyslexia and Literacy Difficulties (2009)

    The independent report that shaped English practice: dyslexia as difficulties in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling, best understood as a continuum rather than a category with a clear cut-off.

  3. British Psychological SocietyProfessional guidance
    Dyslexia, Literacy and Psychological Assessment (1999, updated 2005)

    The BPS working party report for educational psychologists. Important for why assessment should describe literacy difficulties and what to teach, rather than only award or withhold a label.

  4. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
    Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1 — guidance report (2017, updated 2020)

    Recommendations on developing language, phonological awareness, systematic phonics, fluency and targeted support for struggling readers.

  5. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
    Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 — guidance report (2017, second edition 2021)

    Reading fluency, vocabulary, comprehension strategies, writing, and structured intervention for pupils who have fallen behind.

  6. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
    Phonics — Teaching and Learning Toolkit

    Rated high impact for very low cost, based on very extensive evidence, with the largest effects for pupils who are struggling with early reading.

  7. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
    Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools — guidance report (2020, updated 2021)

    High-quality teaching first, careful scaffolding, and cautious deployment of teaching assistants and technology.

  8. Department for Education / University College LondonResearch summary
    Identifying and supporting children and young people with cognition and learning needs: a rapid evidence review (September 2025)

    DfE-commissioned UCL review. Carries an explicit disclaimer that it is not an endorsement and does not reflect government policy.

  9. Department for EducationResearch summary
    Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group: report — recommendations for mainstream education (February 2026)

    Independent recommendations to DfE, including timely identification of strengths and needs in the setting rather than reliance on diagnostic queues.

  10. Department for EducationStatutory guidance
    SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years (2015)

    Current statutory guidance. Specific learning difficulties, including dyslexia, sit within cognition and learning; provision follows identified need.

Related
Dyslexia·Evidence & sourcesDyslexia·Evidence & sourcesDyslexia·Evidence & sources
Supporting Families
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The Kind Learner Space has this guide in plain English for families — the same evidence, translated for home.

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Where to go next.

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ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, sensory processing and related neurodevelopmental profiles.

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