How to Start the School Year Strong When Your Child Has Dyslexia
- Troy Hubbell
- Aug 6
- 6 min read
By Troy Hubbell, CALT | Certified Academic Language Therapist | Your Dyslexia Expert
A new school year is a fresh start. For families navigating dyslexia, it can also feel like a starting line with a lot of ground to cover before the race even begins. The good news is that a little intentional preparation before the year starts, and a few consistent habits once it does, can make an enormous difference in how the year unfolds. If you are just getting started and are not sure what an IEP or 504 is or how to ask for one, our Insider Guide to IEPs and Getting Help From Your Child’s School is a good place to begin.
Here is how to start the school year strong when your child has dyslexia, one step at a time.
Before School Starts: How to Start the School Year Strong With Dyslexia
Request a Meeting Before the First Day
If your child has an IEP or a 504 plan, do not wait for the school to reach out. Request a meeting with the special education team or classroom teacher before or during the first week of school. You want to confirm that everyone who will be working with your child understands their profile, their goals, and what accommodations are in place. A plan that sits in a file does no good. A plan that every teacher has read and understands is a different thing entirely.
If your child does not yet have an IEP or 504 and you believe they need one, the beginning of a new school year is an excellent time to put a request in writing. Schools are required to respond to written evaluation requests within a set timeframe. The earlier you ask, the earlier the process can begin.
Review the IEP or 504 Carefully
Before the year starts, read through your child’s current plan carefully. Ask yourself whether the goals are specific and measurable. Ask whether the accommodations address the actual barriers your child faces. For a child with dyslexia, the most meaningful accommodations include text-to-speech for reading-heavy tasks, speech-to-text for written work, and access to audiobooks for content-area classes. A 504 plan provides accommodations in the general education classroom but does not include specialized reading instruction. If your child is not making meaningful progress on a 504 alone, it is worth asking whether an IEP evaluation is appropriate.
Make Sure Structured Literacy Instruction Is Happening
The single most important question to ask the school is what structured literacy instruction your child is receiving, who is delivering it, what credentials that person holds, and how frequently it happens. For a child with dyslexia, general reading support is not the same as structured literacy, and the difference matters enormously.
Many schools still use an approach called three-cueing, which teaches children to guess words using the first letter, pictures, and context rather than sounding them out. This approach is not grounded in the science of reading and is actually part of why so many children with dyslexia do not make the progress they should. If you want to understand more about how this happened and why it matters, Emily Hanford’s podcast At a Loss for Words is one of the most important pieces of journalism on exactly this problem.
Structured literacy is different. It is explicit, systematic, and cumulative. It teaches children how sounds and letters actually work together in a carefully sequenced way, building each new concept on what came before. It is the approach with the strongest research support for students with dyslexia, and it is what your child needs. If you are not getting a clear answer from the school about whether this is what they are delivering, that is important information.
Credentials to look for in any specialist are those from the International Dyslexia Association at dyslexiaida.org, the Center for Effective Reading Instruction at effectivereading.org, or the International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council at imslec.org.
At Home: The Habits That Matter Most
Read Aloud Every Single Day
The most valuable thing you can do at home, regardless of your child’s age or grade level, is read to them every day from real chapter books well above the level they can read independently. This is not just a nice thing to do. It is clinically important.
Struggling readers read less. Because they read less, they encounter fewer words, less complex language, and less background knowledge than their peers who read easily. Over time this gap compounds in ways that extend far beyond reading itself. This is what researchers call the Matthew Effect: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Reading aloud to your child every day protects their vocabulary and language comprehension while their decoding skills develop with instruction. Find something they cannot put down. Read it to them every night (or get the audiobook!). That habit alone will make a meaningful difference over the course of a school year.
Set Up Assistive Technology Before School Starts
Do not wait until a homework crisis to figure out what tools your child has access to. Set up text-to-speech on their devices now so it is ready to go on day one. Google Read and Write is a browser tool that combines text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and word prediction and works across most platforms. Learning Ally at learningally.org provides human-narrated audiobooks for students with print disabilities, with the app highlighting text as it plays. Speech-to-text lets your child dictate rather than type, removing the spelling barrier from written work.
For content-area homework, the goal of the assignment or test is a useful framework. If the goal is practicing reading and spelling, no assistive technology. The productive struggle with reading and spelling skills is the point. If the goal is demonstrating understanding in science, history, or math, then spelling and decoding are not the skill being assessed. That is exactly where assistive technology earns its place.
For Older Students: Secondary School and Beyond
The school year gets harder as students get older, and the demands on reading and writing accelerate significantly in middle and high school. For older students with dyslexia, a few additional things are worth thinking about at the start of each year.
Make sure every teacher knows your child’s profile and what accommodations they are entitled to. In middle and high school, students often have seven or eight different teachers, and accommodations that are not communicated clearly to each one tend to be inconsistently applied.
If your student is in high school and planning for college, the start of junior year is the time to begin thinking about college board accommodations for the SAT or ACT. These require documentation and take time to set up. Do not leave them until the last minute.
Get Your Child the Help They Need
The right specialist makes an enormous difference. At Your Dyslexia Expert, we provide high quality remote structured literacy instruction at an accessible price point, with school advocacy included at no additional charge. Our philosophy is simple: put the best experts with the best tools in front of a student and let them do what they do best.
We are a small operation and always will be. That is intentional.
Every member of our team holds recognized credentials in structured literacy and dyslexia. We work entirely online, which means location is never a barrier, and we have availability year-round. Whether your child is just starting out or has been struggling for years, we would love to help.
If you are ready to get started or just want to talk through what support might look like for your child, visit us at yourdyslexiaexpert.com or reach out directly at troyhubbell@yourdyslexiaexpert.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most important thing I can do before the school year starts?
Request a meeting with your child’s school team to make sure the IEP or 504 is in place, understood by every teacher, and actually addressing your child’s specific needs. If no plan exists, put a written evaluation request in now.
Should my child keep working with their tutor during the school year?
Yes. The school year is not the time to reduce specialist support. The added demands of a new grade level make consistent targeted instruction more important, not less.
What accommodations matter most for a student with dyslexia?
Text-to-speech for reading-heavy tasks, speech-to-text for written work, and access to audiobooks for content-area classes are the most impactful. For younger students, small group reading instruction with a trained specialist is essential.
How do I know if the reading instruction my child is getting at school is the right kind?
Ask specifically what program is being used, whether it is based on structured literacy, who is delivering it, and what credentials they hold. A child with dyslexia needs explicit, systematic, cumulative instruction delivered by someone trained in structured literacy, NOT three-cueing.
We tried to get an IEP last year and were denied. Should we try again?
Yes. A denial is not permanent. If your child’s needs have changed or new documentation is available, a new request is appropriate. A local special education advocate can help you understand your options and navigate the process.
Troy Hubbell is a CALT (Certified Academic Language Therapist) and CERI certified Structured Literacy and Dyslexia Specialist with over 13 years of experience in special education. He is the founder of Your Dyslexia Expert, which provides remote structured literacy instruction and school advocacy for students with dyslexia. Learn more at yourdyslexiaexpert.com.
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