What can I ask my child's teacher during dyslexia intervention?

You can ask your child’s teacher for practical classroom support while dyslexia intervention is under way: shorter reading passages, spelling assessed separately from ideas, instructions given one step at a time, and homework that values quality over quantity. These are not special favours. They let your child keep learning while reading and spelling skills are rebuilt.

Am I asking for special treatment?

Many parents worry about asking for too much. They sit on reasonable requests for months because they do not want to seem demanding, and meanwhile their child spends every school day working harder than anyone realises just to keep up.

Here is a better way to frame it. You are not asking for special treatment. You are asking for support that helps your child access learning while they develop their literacy skills. A child in the middle of dyslexia intervention is rebuilding reading and spelling from the foundations. Until that work is done, small adjustments are what keep science, history, and maths within reach.

Most teachers want to help. I have written before about the role of a teacher in helping a dyslexic learner, and in my experience what teachers lack is rarely willingness. It is specifics. The questions below give your next conversation something concrete to work with. Pick the ones that fit your child; you will not need them all.

What can I ask about reading?

For a child who is still relearning the code of written English, a long passage is exhausting before comprehension even gets a chance. Some questions to discuss:

• Can my child be given shorter reading passages initially?
• Could someone check their understanding after reading?
• Can new vocabulary be introduced before reading activities?

That last one matters more than it looks: meeting the new words first lowers the decoding load and gives understanding room to work.

What can I ask about writing and spelling?

Writing asks a dyslexic child to do everything at once: form the letters, hold the sentence in mind, and spell every word. Requests in this area separate those loads:

• Can spelling be assessed separately while intervention is ongoing?
• Can copying from the board be reduced where possible?
• Can written tasks be divided into smaller parts?
• Where appropriate, can understanding be assessed without placing excessive emphasis on spelling errors?

This is not about letting errors slide. Children need corrective feedback to make progress, and during intervention their spelling is being corrected systematically in every session. What the request changes is where spelling gets marked: a science answer can then show what your child understands without losing marks over spelling.

You are not asking the school to lower the bar. You are asking for a way over it: support that lets your child reach the learning while the reading and spelling catch up.

What can I ask about classroom learning?

• Can instructions be given one step at a time?
• Could someone check that my child has understood the instructions before beginning?
• Would seating closer to the teacher be helpful?
• Can my child have a little extra processing time before responding?

None of these costs the school anything. Extra processing time is the one I would press for: many children know the answer and need only a few more seconds to retrieve it. A teacher who waits gets to see what the child actually knows.

What can I ask about homework?

Homework is where school difficulty follows a child home. Reasonable requests:

• Can homework focus on quality rather than quantity?
• Can reading assignments be kept manageable to build confidence?
• Can expectations be adjusted temporarily while foundational skills are being strengthened?

Notice the word temporarily. These are scaffolds, not permanent concessions; as intervention rebuilds the underlying skills, the adjustments fall away. In the meantime, if evenings are still a battle, I have shared practical ideas on how to keep your kids focused during homework time.

What can I ask about communication?

• Can we review progress together every few weeks?
• Are there classroom observations that would help guide intervention?
• How can we maintain consistency between home, school, and intervention sessions?

This is the area parents most often skip, and it is the one I value most. An informal assessment of reading and spelling shows me where a child’s gaps begin, but the classroom shows what a one-to-one session cannot: how the child copes with noise, time pressure, and a full timetable. A teacher’s observations feed directly into what I teach next, and what I teach shows up in her classroom within weeks. Everyone’s work gets easier when the information flows both ways.

Who carries all of this?

No one person, and that is the point. These conversations create a partnership rather than placing expectations on one person alone. The teacher keeps learning within reach in the classroom, the intervention rebuilds the skills underneath, and you hold the whole picture together at home. So ask, plainly and without apology. The worst outcome of a reasonable request is a conversation about what is possible instead.

Frequently asked questions

What if the teacher says no?

Start smaller. A teacher managing a full classroom cannot do everything on this list, so choose the two requests that would help your child most and ask about those. If the class teacher cannot help, ask whether a special educator or coordinator can join the conversation. Most refusals are about workload, not unwillingness.

Should I put my requests in writing?

Yes, briefly and warmly. After you meet, send a short note or email summarising what was agreed. It keeps everyone remembering the same things, and it gives next year’s teacher a starting point.

Dr. V.S. Gayathri is a Dyslexia Therapist, an Orton-Gillingham trained literacy specialist, and the founder of Flourishing Kids. She has delivered over 4,000 hours of one-to-one reading and spelling intervention, helping children across multiple countries build stronger literacy skills. If you are unsure what to ask for your own child, get in touch for a free 15-minute conversation.