Early Intervention for Dyslexia: When to Start

If your child is in the first years of primary school and can’t yet read simple words, the research points to starting help now, not waiting. In one study of 172 struggling readers, children taught in their second or third year of school gained almost twice as much in word reading, compared with similar untaught children, as children taught in their fourth year. Early intervention for dyslexia does not need a diagnosis to begin.

None of that is a reason for alarm. It is a reason to act on what you and the teacher can already see. This guide covers what the research reports, why a diagnosis is not the first step, what early help involves for a young child and what to ask the school this week. For the full picture of what works, see the page on dyslexia treatment.

Should we wait and see, or start help now?

Start now. Waiting to see whether reading “clicks” uses up the years in which, on the research below, the same teaching does the most.

“Wait and see” is usually said kindly. Children do learn at different rates, and in the first year of school every child reads slowly and makes mistakes. The trouble is that a child at risk of dyslexia looks much the same as a late starter for a while. How a child responds to good teaching tells the two apart sooner than waiting does.

AUSPELD, the national body for specific learning difficulties, tells parents and teachers not to wait for a child to fail before acting. Its guide for parents lists the early difficulties worth acting on:

hearing the sounds in spoken words, such as rhymes or words that start with the same sound
learning letter names and the sounds they stand for
reading simple words accurately without guessing

A long term study explains why waiting is risky. Researchers followed 414 children from the second year of school to the end of school. The children with dyslexia were already behind the others at the start, and the gap between the two groups never closed.

What does research say about starting early compared with later?

Research reports that the same teaching does more when it starts earlier. The clearest evidence is a 2017 study from the United States and Canada, which gave one reading program to struggling readers in three different year levels.

The 172 children were taught in groups of four for an hour a day, for up to 125 hours. Each group was measured against similar children who did not have the program. On standard tests of word reading, children taught in their second or third year of school gained almost twice as much, compared with similar untaught children, as children taught in their fourth year. The youngest starters also kept improving faster in the years after the program ended.

The same study carries two points for a parent whose child is older. Children who had the program at any of the three year levels did better than children who did not. And on some skills, spelling among them, the older children gained as much or more.

So the finding is that earlier is better. It is not that later is too late. No study can say what a particular child will gain, and nothing here is a promise about yours.

Does my child need a dyslexia diagnosis before getting help?

No. You do not need to wait for a dyslexia diagnosis before getting help. Teaching can start on the strength of what your child finds hard.

In practice the order runs the other way. A formal diagnosis of dyslexia is usually made by a psychologist, and one of the criteria is that the difficulty has continued despite at least six months of teaching aimed at it. Good teaching comes first, and how a child responds to it is part of the evidence a psychologist uses later.

A speech pathologist does not diagnose dyslexia. A speech pathologist assesses reading, spelling and the spoken language skills underneath them, and that assessment shows what to teach first. The first assessment with Dr Lauren works this way: it is done to plan the teaching, with or without a diagnosis.

What does early intervention for dyslexia involve?

Early intervention for dyslexia is direct, step by step teaching of how spoken sounds and written letters fit together, with a lot of practice. Schools call the letter and sound part phonics. For a child in the first years of school it usually covers:

hearing and pulling apart the sounds in spoken words
learning which letters stand for which sounds
blending sounds to read a word, and breaking a word into sounds to spell it
reading short books made from the letter patterns taught so far

Each new step is taught, shown, practised and checked before the next one is added. Nothing is left for the child to guess or pick up along the way. The page on reading help sets out how that teaching moves from single sounds to fluent reading.

Sessions with Dr Lauren Crumlish are online by video. She assesses, sets the goals, teaches each new step, checks it and decides when to move on. With a young child, a parent sits beside them in every session, so you see exactly what is taught, and Dr Lauren shows you short, guided practice for the days between. The guide to helping at home covers what that practice looks like.

How does early help fit with what the school is doing?

Help outside school works alongside the school’s teaching. It adds to it and does not replace it. Many schools arrange reading support in three levels, which AUSPELD describes like this:

Level of support	What it is	Who it is for
Whole class teaching	Reading and spelling taught to everyone, with each child’s progress checked at regular intervals	Every child
Small group teaching	Extra, more explicit teaching in a small group, on top of class lessons	Children who need more than class lessons give them
One to one teaching	An individual program, usually written into a learning plan and reviewed often	Children still behind after small group teaching

Individual sessions with a speech pathologist sit beside whichever level your child is on. It helps when both follow the same order of sounds and letters, so ask the class teacher which sounds have been taught so far, and share what an outside assessment found.

Tell the school that your child is having extra teaching and for how long. If a psychologist assesses your child later, a record of what was taught, by whom and for how many months is useful evidence.

What should I ask the school now?

Ask specific questions and ask them now, without waiting for the next report. A teacher can usually answer these in a short meeting:

Which letter sounds does my child know, and which are they still learning?
Can they blend sounds to read a simple word they have not seen before, or are they guessing from the picture or the first letter?
How does their reading compare with what you expect at this point in the year, and how was that measured?
Is my child in a small group for extra reading teaching? How often, and what is taught in it?
When will their progress be checked again, and what happens if they have not moved?
What should we practise at home, and for how long each day?

Write down the answers and the date. If the answer to the fifth question is “we will see how they go”, ask for a date. The guide to dyslexia at school covers adjustments, learning plans and what a school is required to provide.

Is it too late if my child is older?

No. Children taught later still learn to read and spell better with explicit teaching, as the older group in the 2017 study did. Dyslexia is lifelong, and good teaching helps at any age.

What changes with age is the amount of ground to cover and how a child feels about reading after years of finding it hard. The teaching follows the same principles. Dr Lauren also works with teenagers with dyslexia, where the goals and the shape of sessions are different.