Have you ever heard someone say, "They can't be dyslexic because they can read"?
It's a common misunderstanding, particularly when a child reads aloud confidently, enjoys books and appears to be keeping up with their classmates.
But dyslexia is much more complex than simply struggling to read words.
Some children have significant difficulties decoding written language. Others become accurate readers but continue to struggle with spelling, reading speed, comprehension or processing information.
Being able to read does not necessarily mean someone is reading efficiently, understanding everything or finding the process easy.
And this is why teachers and parents need to understand the different ways dyslexia can present.
What Is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty that primarily affects the acquisition of reading and spelling skills.
It is associated with differences in how the brain processes aspects of language and written information.
The British Dyslexia Association's updated definition recognises that dyslexia occurs along a continuum, meaning individuals experience different combinations and degrees of difficulty.
Dyslexia does not affect intelligence.
A child might have excellent reasoning abilities, creativity, problem-solving skills or verbal knowledge while finding particular aspects of literacy extremely demanding.
But to understand dyslexia properly, we need to look at the different processing difficulties that can be involved.
Are There Different Types of Dyslexia?
You may have heard terms such as phonological dyslexia, surface dyslexia or double-deficit dyslexia.
These describe different patterns of difficulty. They are not separate formal diagnostic categories routinely used in the UK, and an individual may experience several overlapping difficulties.
Phonological Dyslexia
Phonological processing involves recognising, remembering and working with the sounds within spoken words.
For example, a child needs to understand that the word cat contains three sounds and learn how those sounds correspond to letters.
Someone experiencing phonological difficulties may struggle to break unfamiliar words into sounds, blend sounds together or use phonics to decode new words.
You might notice a child recognising familiar words but having considerable difficulty reading words they haven't encountered before.
Spelling can also be particularly challenging because the child needs to identify and represent the individual sounds within a word.
Surface Dyslexia and Orthographic Difficulties
Orthographic processing involves learning and remembering written letter patterns and familiar word spellings.
A child might be able to sound out regular words but struggle to recognise or spell words that don't follow straightforward spelling patterns.
For example, words such as yacht, said or island cannot always be read successfully by applying simple letter-sound rules.
Some children repeatedly sound out words they have encountered many times because recognising those words automatically remains difficult.
This can make reading slower and more tiring.
Rapid Naming and Double-Deficit Difficulties
Rapid naming is the ability to quickly retrieve familiar verbal information, such as the names of letters, numbers or colours.
A child might know every letter of the alphabet but take much longer to name a sequence of letters quickly.
This can contribute to difficulties with reading fluency.
The term double-deficit describes a pattern involving both phonological processing and rapid naming difficulties.
These children may experience significant challenges with both reading accuracy and speed.
What About Comprehension Difficulties?
This is an area that can be particularly hidden.
Some people use the term comprehension dyslexia to describe difficulties understanding written information.
However, comprehension dyslexia is not a formally recognised separate subtype of dyslexia. Significant reading comprehension difficulties can occur alongside dyslexia or independently of it.
And this distinction is important.
Imagine a child reading a paragraph aloud.
They recognise every word, pronounce them correctly and appear completely fluent.
But when asked to explain what they've read, they struggle.
They may remember individual words or details but cannot explain the overall meaning, identify the main point or understand information that is implied rather than directly stated.
Reading the words and understanding their meaning are different processes.
Comprehension involves vocabulary, language understanding, making connections between ideas, drawing inferences and remembering relevant information.
Working memory can also contribute because we need to hold earlier information in mind while processing new sentences.
Some children repeatedly reread paragraphs because they haven't understood or retained the information.
Others understand an explanation when it is presented verbally but struggle when reading it independently.
However, some children experience difficulties understanding both written and spoken language. In those cases, difficulties with language comprehension, including Developmental Language Disorder, may also need consideration.
The important point is that listening to a child read aloud does not tell us everything about their comprehension.
And if we don't check understanding, these difficulties can remain unnoticed.
What Other Signs Might Teachers Recognise?
Not every child with dyslexia will experience the same difficulties.
Some of the less obvious signs can include:
Reading familiar words accurately but struggling with unfamiliar vocabulary.
Reading slowly or needing to reread information.
Spelling the same word differently within one piece of work.
Understanding a subject verbally but producing limited written answers.
Difficulty remembering sequences, such as days or months.
Confusing left and right.
Struggling to remember several instructions at once.
Taking longer to process written information.
Finding copying from the board particularly demanding.
Becoming mentally tired during extended reading or writing activities.
These difficulties are not exclusive to dyslexia, and individual signs do not establish a diagnosis.
But they can tell us that further investigation is needed.
What Does Executive Functioning Have to Do With Dyslexia?
This is another important connection.
Executive functions help us manage information, organise our thinking and carry out tasks.
Consider working memory.
Imagine a child being asked to read a paragraph, remember the important information and write an answer.
They need to recognise the words, understand their meaning, retain relevant information, organise their thoughts and produce a written response.
If reading and spelling already require considerable effort, there may be fewer mental resources available for the other demands of the task.
Some children with dyslexia also experience difficulties with working memory, processing speed or organisation.
But executive functioning difficulties are not present in every dyslexic individual, and they should not automatically be attributed to dyslexia.
We need to understand which processes are difficult for that particular learner.
Why Can Dyslexia Affect Learning Across Different Subjects?
Think about a child in a science lesson.
They may understand the experiment, contribute to discussions and explain what happened.
But when asked to read a written explanation and answer questions, they struggle.
A teacher might assume they haven't understood the science.
Yet the difficulty could involve decoding, reading fluency, comprehension, spelling or organising their written response.
Now consider a mathematical word problem.
A child might understand the calculation but struggle to interpret the written instructions.
Again, the problem may not be their mathematical understanding.
As children progress through school, they increasingly move from learning to read towards reading to learn.
This means unidentified literacy and comprehension difficulties can affect progress across the curriculum.
And the older the child becomes, the more demanding these tasks may be.
Looking Beyond the Diagnosis
Dyslexia is not simply about reversing letters, getting spellings wrong or struggling to read aloud.
It involves individual patterns of difficulty that can affect reading accuracy, fluency, spelling and sometimes wider learning processes.
Some children develop effective strategies that make their difficulties less visible.
Others work exceptionally hard to achieve results that appear ordinary when compared with their classmates.
And some children can read fluently while experiencing significant difficulties understanding what they've read, whether or not those comprehension difficulties are part of a dyslexic profile.
The ability to read words, understand information, remember it and use that knowledge are not all the same thing.
This is why recognising dyslexia requires more than simply listening to a child read or checking their spelling.
We need to understand their individual learning profile, identify the processes creating barriers and recognise the effort involved.
Because the question shouldn't simply be, "Can this child read?"
It should be, "How does this child read, what do they understand, and where are the barriers to their learning?"
That's where meaningful support begins.
