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Dyslexia is a learning disability characterized by difficulties with decoding words, reading comprehension, and spelling.

An in-depth look at dyslexia, its causes, symptoms, and ways to help your child follows below. Some of the important concepts we’ll cover are:

• What is Dyslexia?
• The most common neurocognitive disorder, dyslexia is a miswiring of the nervous system signals in the brain leading to difficulties in phonological processing (ability to recognize, process, and use spoken and written language).
• Signs and Symptoms:
• Common characteristics of dyslexia are a delay in speech and overall language development, reversing or mispronouncing letters in words, slow to read, difficulties with remembering letters, shapes, and colors.
• Support Strategies/Ways to support your child:
• Using structured, multisensory approaches like the Orton-Gillingham Approach, early intervention, and attentive parental support are just three of the critical support strategies. We cover many more strategies in detail below.

Now that you have the overview, let’s dig in deeper:

What is Dyslexia?

It is a neurobiological condition. Neurobiology refers to the workings of our nervous system; in this case, the nerves that carry signals through the brain. Dyslexia is the most common of all neurocognitive disorders, according to the Yale University Center for Dyslexia. (Yale University, 2022)² Exactly how common is a matter of dispute because dyslexia can manifest differently in different individuals, and other countries use different definitions of what qualifies as dyslexia. Most estimates fall between 5% and 10% of the population having at least some characteristics of dyslexia.

Children’s brains are still growing and malleable. Early diagnosis of dyslexia can significantly affect how far your child’s reading skills can progress. Equally significant, children who get early intervention experience less stress and negative beliefs about their reading ability. Believing you can’t learn can severely inhibit the willingness even to try.

Common Misconceptions about Dyslexia:

People with dyslexia have low intelligence. Researchers at the University of Michigan (University of Michigan, 2025)³ found that dyslexia is not correlated with intelligence. Dyslexia occurs in people throughout the intelligence spectrum.

Dyslexia is a vision problem. Studies have failed to show any connection between vision problems and dyslexia.

Children who reverse letters or numbers have dyslexia. It is common for children learning to write to reverse numbers or letters. If a child continues reversals after 2 to 3 years of consistent handwriting instruction, it might indicate dyslexia.

Children with dyslexia cannot learn to read. Children with dyslexia can absolutely learn to read. All About Reading and All About Spelling are based on the Orton-Gillingham Approach, which is known for helping students with dyslexia. Marie Rippel, author and founder of All About Learning Press, is a literacy expert who was trained in this approach and tutored for over 20 years. Her son is severely dyslexic, and doctors claimed he would never learn to read or write; she set out to prove the experts wrong! Learn more about their story.

Dyslexia is not the only reason for learning difficulties. Learn more about What Dyslexia is Not, as well as some common misconceptions about it.

Causes and Risk Factors of Dyslexia

According to the International Dyslexia Association, brain scans of people with dyslexia show a problem with “identifying the separate speech sounds within a word and/or learning how letters represent those sounds” (Dyslexiaida.org, 2002)⁴

Because dyslexia is a neurological condition, factors that impact fetal brain development can play a part in increasing the risk for dyslexia, including:

• Inherited genetics
• Low birth weight
• Premature birth
• Exposure to toxins while in utero

Signs and Symptoms of Dyslexia

Our brains are complicated and not fully understood. Dyslexia is what we call the condition when missing or malfunctioning wiring in the brain impairs letter and number recognition. It can manifest in different ways depending on a host of factors unique to each individual. Some of the most common indicators are:

In very young children, dyslexia can look like:

• Delay in speech and overall language development
• Reversing sounds in words
• Difficulty remembering the names of colors or shapes
• Unable to remember songs or rhymes

In school-aged children:

• Reading below expected level
• Missing or transposing letters
• Avoidance of reading activities

Teens and adults

Once someone reaches their teens, they often learn skills to compensate for their lack of reading ability, so it can be harder to spot. Here are some red flags:

• Challenges with reading comprehension
• Difficulty memorizing the facts of any subject
• Struggling to summarize a story
• Can’t understand jokes based on wordplay or puns

All About Learning Press has prepared this convenient checklist to help parents with a pre-screening checklist for the signs of dyslexia.

How is Dyslexia diagnosed?

While improving reading and spelling is possible at any age, early diagnosis gives children a good chance of reaching their highest reading potential.

A qualified teacher or school special education specialist can use the Shawitz DyslexiaScreen to evaluate for dyslexia. It is a series of assessments about the child’s reading, writing, and language skills. Information to answer those questions is generally also gathered from the parents and other teachers, as dyslexia is not found in a single symptom but is characterized by a series of weaknesses across several areas.

Some of those areas may be:

• Ongoing difficulties in reading, writing, and spelling even after months of one-on-one instruction
• Academic challenges that impact learning and behavior
• Reading struggles show up right from the earliest reading lessons
• The struggles cannot be adequately explained by any other underlying conditions such as medical, intellectual, or vision problem

Parents can also be alert for early signs by watching for challenges in the areas mentioned above.

Can Dyslexia be Treated?

People can manage the effects of dyslexia, but they cannot cure it. Unlike diseases such as measles or other viral infections, which medication can eliminate, dyslexia stems from improper wiring in the nervous system. You can learn more about the neuroscience behind dyslexia in our two-part guide for parents: Part 1. Part 2. Brain scans reveal that certain regions of the brain fail to function correctly. These regions are responsible for processing the relationships between the sounds of letters that form words.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University provided dyslexic children with intensive, structured, and systematic reading education. By providing students with the right kind of instruction, they were able to facilitate growth in the brain’s white matter, which is responsible for phonological processing. Through fMRI imaging, they proved there was noticeable growth in the amount of white matter. White matter increases communication between various regions of the brain, allowing access to greater cognitive abilities. The children in the study also showed measurable improvements in reading ability.

Management and Support Strategies

Educational Interventions:

Many concepts must be grasped in order to learn to read. Most students can intuitively figure out many of them, provided they receive basic phonics instruction. Children with dyslexia don’t have that intuition. Therefore, they need a highly structured program that assumes nothing will be grasped intuitively but breaks the entire learn-to-read process down into small steps and intentionally reinforces each one.

Dr. Samuel Orton was a neuropsychiatrist who specialized in language processing difficulties. He developed the initial processes and strategies that help break reading down into its specific component steps. His colleague was psychologist and educator Anna Gillingham. She turned his strategies into an instructional approach that schools could use.

The Orton-Gillingham Approach is the most effective method for teaching dyslexic students how to read. This free ebook on The Power of the Orton-Gillingham Approach will give you an in-depth look at the essential elements in their method.

The Orton-Gillingham Approach centers around these key learning strategies:

Assistive Technologies:

Combined with a curriculum such as All About Learning, which helps your child reach their full reading and spelling potential, these assistive technologies can further enhance learning abilities and support weak areas such as note-taking and reading speed.

Apps

• All About Learning Press Letter Tiles, Letter Sounds, and Phonogram Sounds.
• Evernote – Take pictures of anything written and turn them into digital notes
• Notability – A powerful, easy-to-learn app for note-taking, creating presentations, and speech-to-notes capability.
• AudibleAnything – Turn any text into audio
• Learning Ally – A non-profit organization committed to helping dyslexic, blind, and visually impaired students thrive.

Audiobooks. Help your child experience a wider array of literature by using audiobooks.

• Bookshare – Open source access to over 10,000 titles
• Libby – Connect with the online collections of thousands of public libraries.

Parental and Educator Support:

A dyslexic child will do best with individualized instruction. In public schools, they use an IEP or Individualized Education Plan. Because she needs more intensive and structured lessons, trying to learn in a classroom setting with students of varying reading abilities is unworkable. Ideally, she will meet one-on-one with a reading specialist or get individual instruction from the teacher.

6 ways to support your dyslexic child

1. You can be their advocate if your child is in a public school. The vast majority of teachers are caring and deeply invested in each of their students. Assume the best, stay involved, and attend special events and parent/teacher conferences. Building a good relationship with the teacher will pay enormous dividends for your child.
2. Let him see you working in cooperation with the school so he will consider the school part of a team that wants him to succeed. If he doesn’t already have one, push for an IEP and stay involved, holding the school accountable for following it.

3. Provide a special work area at home to reinforce and support whatever the school does for your child. Give him the time and assistance to work on assignments.
4. Do lots of reading aloud. Hearing language read aloud, particularly from quality literature, will help develop your child’s ear for how words sound, good grammar, and sentence structure. She will recognize the flow of a well-constructed paragraph. Reading aloud will further train her brain, building new neural pathways that will help her learn to read for herself.
5. Start the practice of celebrating wins. Focus on noticing even the smallest of accomplishments. Maybe your child could sit for 3 minutes longer during reading practice. That’s a huge win! Perhaps she persevered and learned a new phonogram this week. Another win. Perseverance is a remarkable character trait, which, when applauded and nurtured, will grow and serve your child well for the rest of her life.
6. Be patient. Dyslexia is not a reflection of your abilities as a parent. It does not mean your child is spoiled, unintelligent, or will be a failure. It is a learning difference. Not one single child is average in every single area of growth. Some do well at athletics, some do better at designing and building things, and other kids are good at reading and spelling. Every child has areas with room for improvement. Dyslexic children can read. They need a specific teaching approach and the support of understanding adults.

If homeschooling with one-on-one instruction is an option for your family, exceptional outcomes are possible. The All About Reading and All About Spelling programs use the Orton-Gillingham Approach, complete with a lightly scripted teacher’s manual to make lessons more effortless for the teacher. Over 150,000 children have used our programs to master reading and spelling.

Our “Real Moms, Real Kids” stories are encouraging testimonies from parents who found that the All About Reading program worked when nothing else did.

Hope for Dyslexic Children.

Dyslexia means difficulties in early reading, comprehension, spelling, and writing. However, research suggests that dyslexia gives the brain a unique capacity for understanding higher-level concepts (Wadlington & Wadlington, 2005). Adults with dyslexia excel in professions such as medicine, art, architecture, engineering, and the law.

There are many more resources to be found on the All About Learning Press dyslexia resources page.

Using the right approach to teach reading and spelling, such as All About Learning Press materials, combined with lots of read-alouds, patience, and understanding, will give your child the best possible foundation to reach his highest potential.

References:

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¹ IDA Board of Directors, (Nov 12, 2002,) “Definition of Dyslexia,” International Dyslexia Association, https://dyslexiaida.org/definition-of-dyslexia/

² Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, (2022) “Dyslexia FAQ” Yale University. https://dyslexia.yale.edu/dyslexia/dyslexia-faq/

³ Dyslexia Help, (2025), “Debunking the Myths about Dyslexia” University of Michigan, https://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/parents/learn-about-dyslexia/what-is-dyslexia/debunking-common-myths-about-dyslexia

⁴ Moats, L. and Dakin, K. (2020) “Dyslexia Basics” International Dyslexia Association, (https://dyslexiaida.org/dyslexia-basics-2/)