Diagnosed with dyslexia: what do we do first?

The report is on the kitchen counter, and the word on the first page is dyslexia. Relief and overwhelm showed up in the same afternoon. Or there is no report at all, because private testing was out of reach, and you are fairly sure anyway.

Hold one frame before anything else: your child isn’t broken, their brain is learning differently. What you need now is an order for the next few weeks, not a pile of options.

Why the report alone does not start help at school

It is natural to expect the report to switch services on. It does not, and that is how the system is built, not a verdict on your child. In the US, an IEP rests on a two-part test in federal law. A child needs a qualifying condition, and a need for special education because of it. Dyslexia is named inside the federal definition of a specific learning disability, so the first half is covered. The second half is decided by a school team, and the law makes you a member of that team.

A Section 504 plan asks a different question: does the difference limit a major life activity? Learning is one the rule names. The two plans are not either/or, so ask for both by name. Then share the private report. The district has to consider it if it meets the district’s criteria, and considering is not the same as agreeing.

The report itself is worth reading closely. The International Dyslexia Association’s 2025 definition covers difficulties with phonological and morphological processing, the sounds and meaningful parts inside words. It calls them “common but not universal,” which is why the skills your child’s report names matter more than the label on top. Underline them, because those are what you want the school’s plan to teach. If the terms are new, our dyslexia overview walks through them in plain words.

The books coming home might be teaching your child to guess

Many early readers are built to be predictable. The sentence repeats, the picture shows a dog, and a child who finds sounding out hard learns to look up at the picture and guess. It works for a while, which is why it hides the problem. Literacy researcher Timothy Shanahan calls this kind of guessing “descriptive of how poor readers read rather than how good ones do.”

Decodable books are the swap. They hold only the letter patterns your child has been taught, so sounding out is the only way through. Treat them as a stage, not a diet, and keep richer books in the read-aloud pile.

The method behind them matters as well. Galuschka et al. (2014) reviewed 22 randomized trials of approaches for children with reading difficulties. Systematic phonics was the only approach whose effect was statistically confirmed. That is why your first question for the school is about its program, and the reading research we hold sets out the rest.

One more thing to put down is the idea that this is permanent. A diagnosis describes where your child is today. It does not predict where they’ll be in a year of the right kind of practice. The IDA’s 2025 definition puts it like this. “Although identification and targeted instruction are important at any age, language and literacy support before and during the early years of education is particularly effective”.

Whatever your child’s age, the right time to start is now.

What to do this week, in order

At school, put everything in writing.

1. Send one email asking the school to evaluate your child for special education (an IEP) and for a Section 504 plan. Use both names. Attach the report if you have one. If you have none, describe what you see at home instead.

2. Add a short page of your own notes: what reading homework looks like, which words trip your child up, what they avoid. Federal rules require the school to use information from parents, so this is evidence, not a favor.

3. Put three questions in the same email. Which reading program will be used, and please send its scope and sequence. How will progress be measured? How often will the plan be reviewed? Ask for the order of skills, never a date.

In the US, the evaluation clock starts when you sign the consent form, so sign it promptly. If the school declines, it has to tell you in writing and give its reasons. That letter is your next step, not the end of the road.

At home, two swaps.

4. Keep reading aloud every day, from books at the level of your child’s ideas rather than their decoding. Our view is that what a child understands when someone reads to them is the ceiling their own reading is working toward.

5. Swap the guessing books for decodable ones during practice. Each week, ask what was taught. A sound or a spelling pattern is a good answer. A book title alone is a flag. And when the school offers a support, ask one question: is this building the skill, or replacing the expectation that it gets built?

You want your child reading, and you want them to feel capable while they learn. The villain here is a system that hands out labels and then leaves families to find the next step alone. You found it anyway. Nobody will ever advocate for your child as hard as you will, and that is exactly why your involvement isn’t optional.

When reading is hard, we look at more than reading. The sounds, the page, holding words in mind. Our assessment asks about all of them. If you want a plan for what to build first, start with All Access.