Dyslexia support in London: a parent's guide
If your child is in a London school and reading is not clicking, the help on offer comes in several kinds: support at school, a formal assessment, charity advice lines, and specialist teaching. They do different jobs, and knowing which is which saves months. This guide explains how the pieces fit together in the UK system, and then what Flourishing Kids offers London families as one-to-one online dyslexia intervention.
How does dyslexia support work at school?
The first conversation is with the class teacher, and the second is with the school's SENCO (special educational needs coordinator), which every mainstream school in England has. If the school agrees your child needs extra help, that help arrives as SEN support: small-group phonics, some one-to-one time, adjusted classroom work. For a smaller number of children with higher needs, families apply for an EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan), which sets out the support the child must legally receive.
School support is real and worth having. It is also shared support: limited hours, spread across many children, moving at the school's pace. For a child whose reading is a year or more behind, it keeps them afloat in the classroom, but it rarely rebuilds the foundations one child at a time.
How do families get a dyslexia assessment in the UK?
A formal diagnostic assessment comes from an educational psychologist (EP) or from a specialist assessor who holds an Assessment Practising Certificate. Some schools arrange one; many London families go private, because school EP time is scarce and waiting lists are long. The report describes your child's profile and almost always recommends the same thing: structured, multisensory teaching, delivered consistently.
For advice along the way, the British Dyslexia Association runs a national helpline and a network of local dyslexia associations, and PATOSS keeps an index of specialist teachers and assessors. Both are good places to understand your options, whatever you decide.
What happens after the assessment?
This is the gap that surprises parents. The assessment tells you what is going on, but the report does not teach your child to read. The recommendation says structured teaching by a specialist, and finding that specialist is left to you: specialist teachers in London are in demand, many keep waiting lists, and the day-to-day work of intervention runs for months, not weeks. Whoever you choose, the questions worth asking are the same: is the teaching one-to-one, is it structured and cumulative, and will the same specialist stay with your child from start to finish?
What does Flourishing Kids offer London families?
Flourishing Kids is a one-specialist practice built around exactly that day-to-day work: structured, explicit, multisensory teaching in the Orton-Gillingham tradition, delivered one-to-one online.
One specialist, every session. Every session, from the first assessment to the last lesson, is taught personally by Dr. V.S. Gayathri, a Certified Dyslexia Therapist, Orton-Gillingham trained, with 4,000+ hours of one-to-one intervention. She trained in Sounds in Syllables, a multisensory structured language therapy programme accredited at the Therapy level by IMSLEC: training at the therapy tier, beyond the teaching-level methods most remedial programmes use.
The whole child. Her background in counselling (M.Sc. in Counselling and Psychotherapy) shapes how sessions handle the part of dyslexia that worksheets miss: the anxiety, avoidance and bruised confidence a child carries after years of struggling with print.
One-to-one, online, anywhere in London. Sessions run over video, so it makes no difference whether you are in Harrow, Wembley, Hounslow or anywhere else in the city: no commute, no waiting list tied to a postcode. Children stay in their regular school while sessions of 45 to 60 minutes run two to three times a week, paced by mastery. Families across India, the UAE, Oman, Singapore, Australia, the UK and the US learn this way; their stories are on the testimonials page.
The first step is the Reading & Spelling Snapshot, an informal reading and spelling assessment: Rs 2,500 for families in India, USD 100 for families outside India. Or start with a free 15-minute conversation with Dr. Gayathri.
Common questions
Do we need an EHCP or a formal diagnosis before starting?
No. A formal diagnosis matters for exam access arrangements and for an EHCP application, but structured teaching helps regardless of the label, and starting early matters more than the paperwork. An informal reading and spelling assessment is enough to design the right programme.
Is the Reading & Spelling Snapshot a formal diagnostic assessment?
No, and it is not meant to be. In the UK a formal diagnostic assessment for school provision or exam access arrangements comes from an educational psychologist or a specialist assessor. The Snapshot answers a different question: exactly where your child's reading and spelling break down, and what the teaching should contain. Many families have both; neither replaces the other.
How do online sessions work from London?
Sessions are one-to-one over video, 45 to 60 minutes, two to three times a week. India is four and a half hours ahead of London in summer and five and a half in winter, so London families usually settle on early slots before school or weekend times, which fall in the middle of the Indian day. Session times are agreed when the programme is planned.
We are an Indian-origin family. Does that matter for the teaching?
It often helps. Many Flourishing Kids families are of Indian origin, in the UK and elsewhere, and Dr. Gayathri understands both worlds their children move between: the school system where they learn and the languages and expectations at home. The teaching itself is the same structured, evidence-based approach for every child.
Wondering where to start for your child in London?
A free 15-minute conversation with Dr. Gayathri is an honest place to start. If a different kind of support would serve your child better, she will say so.