It may be tempting to think about literacy support for a student with dyslexia as something a student eventually “graduates” from. We might imagine that if a striving reader receives effective intervention and support in the early grades and learns to read successfully, that student will be a strong, independent reader going forward. But we can’t take that for granted with any student, including students with dyslexia.
Students who have successfully built strong phonemic awareness, phonics, and foundational decoding skills will continue to face intensifying literacy demands as they move through the grades. They will encounter multisyllabic academic vocabulary in increasingly complex text, as well as writing tasks that require them to apply multiple language and cognitive skills at once. A student who successfully achieved important literacy milestones in one year may need additional support in a future year as literacy demands increase and new challenges arise.
The concept of evolving needs along a pathway is important to keep in mind when thinking about literacy development and how students gain and maintain strength as readers and writers. For students with dyslexia, this is especially important because dyslexia doesn’t resolve at a fixed point along the path. A student’s relationship to reading and writing continues to evolve, and support should evolve alongside it.
Well-designed systems of support are valuable because they help educators stay attuned to a student’s changing needs along the student’s literacy path. At its heart, MTSS (multi-tiered system of supports) is prevention-oriented and responsive: universal screening—which takes on different forms across grade levels—assesses all students and identifies those who are not meeting key benchmarks. Progress monitoring helps educators keep a pulse on student growth so they can respond by adjusting instruction and support as a student’s needs change. This combination of screening and progress monitoring prevents support from remaining fixed based on earlier performance or preconceived notions of the level of support required.
Applied to a student with dyslexia, this means screening and progress monitoring data help clarify how well instruction at every tier is meeting that student’s needs at any given moment along their pathway. A student with dyslexia may have successfully moved out of intensive Tier 3 decoding support in second grade only to need additional support in fourth grade as academic vocabulary grows more complex, or in fifth grade as text complexity or writing tasks become more challenging.
Supporting a student with dyslexia across their literacy pathway means staying attentive at every tier and at every stage of reading development. This is not because we assume a student is or will be behind, but because we know that growth always involves meeting new demands along the way. That’s an awareness that can be helpful to hold throughout the year, and especially during Dyslexia Awareness Month.