The reason you received the letter has been decades in the making. Something quietly has been happening in state legislatures across the country. Parents, (mostly of dyslexic children) have been lobbying for changes to the law, one state at a time. And it’s finally showing results.
Let’s talk about a dyslexia screener so you understand what it measures. A dyslexia screening is short. We’re usually talking somewhere between five and twenty minutes. It’s given by someone at the school. In many cases your child might not have even known they were being screened.
A screener measures a handful of very specific early reading skills. Depending on your state and the tool the school district used, it looked at things like phonological awareness, which is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds inside words. Letter-sound knowledge, meaning does your child know the sound that the letter m says /m/. Decoding, which is sounding out words. Rapid automatic naming, which is how quickly your child can name a row of colors or letters out loud.
That last one surprises parents. It sounds kind of like a party trick. But slow naming speed is an early signal that word reading might be an issue. Nobody measured your child’s intelligence. Nobody measured their curiosity, their vocabulary, or how much they know about sharks. A dyslexia screening takes a very narrow sample, like a soil test in one corner of the yard. It does not tell you about the whole garden.
A dyslexia screener only estimates risk. A dyslexia screener is not stating that your child is dyslexic. Only a full evaluation can diagnose that.
Think of it like the vision chart at the pediatrician’s office. The nurse holds up the chart, your child squints, and the nurse says, “You should probably see an eye doctor.” That nurse did not just prescribe glasses. She flagged something worth a closer look.
That’s exactly what happened here.
A dyslexia screener is built to over-flag. Their job is to catch as many children as possible who might need help learning to read. That means there will be kids who are flagged as being at risk who are fine.
These laws were written because early intervention reduces the amount of remediation needed. An at-risk student in kindergarten may only require 15 minutes of daily remediation whereas by the 4th grade, that same student may require 90 minutes of daily remediation. If a child is flagged being at risk then remediation can start sooner.
When the letter says your child is “at risk for reading difficulties,” what it actually means is that your child scored below a cut point on a few specific skills. It does not tell you why.
And the why matters, because there are several honest possibilities. It could be an instruction gap, meaning nobody has explicitly taught your child the code yet. I worked with a student in the 2nd grade whose teacher went out on maternity leave and the child never learned the code. Proper instruction for 6 months had them off and reading. It could be an attention piece. Whatever the reason, your child can benefit from additional reading instruction.
However, if you did receive a letter, you want to look closely at what the report discovered. A flag on fluency in a child who decodes accurately, might be a practice issue. However, a flag on phonological awareness, is the one to look into closely. Low letter-sound knowledge combined with weakness in phonological awareness is a classic early sign of dyslexia. That is not an absolute and I am NOT diagnosing your kid from a blog post no matter how much of an expert I think I am!
Let’s start getting into the weeds because there are a few things to cross off your worry list.
One. A dyslexia screener is not a dyslexia diagnosis. We just covered this, but I’m going to repeat it because repetition is a good thing. A dyslexia screener estimates risk. An evaluation diagnoses. You are not there yet, and you may never be.
Two. It is not a verdict on your child’s intelligence. Reading is not a measure of being smart. It’s a code, and some brains need that code taught directly, with a lot of practice. My daughter was taking AP and IB classes while her processing speed and decoding skills were below her peers. You did not cause this by not reading enough books to your child. Your child did not cause this by not trying hard enough. I really would like to know why society tries to place blame.
Three. It is not something to wait out. If the school’s plan is to keep an eye on it and re-check in the winter, that’s monitoring and isn’t going to help your child address the areas of weakness. Remember that monitoring is not intervention. Watching a child struggle three more months is not a plan, it’s a delay. That letter is an opening that provides a documented, dated piece of information stating the school itself flagged a concern. That’s leverage, and it’s the beginning of your right to ask very specific questions.
Now, let’s turn that letter into action. Send an email with a few questions and request an answer in writing. Why the formality? Written answers create a paper trail, and a paper trail is the single most useful thing you can build in year one.
Question one. Which specific skills scored low? Not the overall score. The subscores. Was it phonological awareness? Letter sound knowledge? Decoding? Naming speed? This tells you where the hole is, and it’s the difference between saying my kid is behind in reading and my kid can’t blend sounds. The first one is nebulous while the second one provides an action plan.
Question two. What supports are being implemented as a result of this screener? This question separates real help from busy work. You are listening for words like systematic, explicit, phonics, and structured literacy. You don’t want to hear words like “more reading time,” “leveled books,” or “we’ll have them use context clues.” If a child can’t decode the word, they need to learn how.
Question three. When do I see the progress monitoring data? Ask for a specific number and a specific date. Every two weeks is common and reasonable. Then ask them to send you the actual data, no a summary.
Question four. What triggers a full evaluation? Ask them to tell you the decision point. Just a side note, under federal child find law, you can request a special education evaluation in writing at any time! Yes, at any time. If the district says no, they have to provide that refusal in writing with their reasons.
Question five. What can I do at home? Ask the interventionist directly. They usually have something small and specific that provides crucial practice. It’s about creating a partnership.
The school’s job is to intervene and monitor. They do that at no cost to you, and in a district with a strong structured language reading program, that’s often enough.
However, an outside evaluation provides three things a school-based dyslexia screening (and the intervention that follows) doesn’t: speed, depth, and independence. Private testing typically happens in weeks rather than months, it looks at the whole picture rather than a few reading measures, and the report belongs to you. If you ever end up in a disagreement with the school, an independent report is the document you’ll want on the table.
But it’s also expensive! A full psychoeducational evaluation can start around fifteen hundred dollars and run to ten thousand dollars (depending on where you live).
Here are my thoughts. If the school is responsive, the intervention is structured, and you’re seeing improvements in eight to twelve weeks, keep going. However, if you’re getting vague answers, if the intervention turns out to be a reading app, or an assistant who had a couple of hours of training and progress hasn’t happened all year, pivot to an outside evaluation.
And if cost is the wall, check whether your state has an Education Savings Account program. In a number of states, ESA funds can be used for evaluations and tutoring. I’m an approved vendor in eight states, and I have watched that money provide new options for families.
Now, for those of you with a child in middle or high school, you’ve read this entire post knowing that your child was never screened.
You’re right. Nearly all of these screening laws are recent and most stop at third grade. If your child was in fourth grade or beyond when the law passed in your state, they weren’t included in the dyslexia screener requirements.
That’s exactly what happened to us. My daughter Alexandrine was a junior in high school. Nobody screens a junior. She’d spent years compensating, and finding work arounds to get good grades. Nothing tripped an alarm which is why I’ve been pushing for early an dyslexia screener in schools.
The signs of dyslexia in an older student are quieter than the signs in a six-year-old. They hide inside ordinary complaints. Spelling that’s noticeably worse than everything else they do. Complete avoidance of reading out loud. Homework that takes twice as long as it should. Bright kids. Exhausted kids. That combination is the one to look for. If that’s your child, ask the school for an evaluation in writing, or get an outside assessment. It’s never too late. I once asked Alex if being evaluated was worth it? She said: “Absolutely Yes!”
The dyslexia screener isn’t perfect but just a few years ago, too many kids quietly fell behind without any letter being sent home. For once, the system might be working.
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Schedule a CallIt means your child scored below a cut point on a few specific early reading skills. It doesn’t mean your child has dyslexia, because a dyslexia screener only estimates risk and only a full evaluation can diagnose dyslexia. Think of it like the vision chart at the pediatrician’s office: the nurse can tell you to see an eye doctor, but she didn’t prescribe glasses.
A dyslexia screening usually takes five to twenty minutes and looks at phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, decoding, and rapid automatic naming, which is how quickly a child can name a row of colors or letters. The exact skills depend on your state and the tool your district uses. A screener doesn’t measure intelligence, vocabulary, or curiosity.
Ask the school for the subscores, not just the overall result. A low fluency score in a child who decodes accurately may be a practice issue. Weak phonological awareness combined with low letter-sound knowledge can be a classic early sign of dyslexia and deserves a closer look.
Send an email and ask for answers in writing. Ask which specific skills scored low, what supports are being put in place, when you’ll see the progress monitoring data, what triggers a full evaluation, and what you can do at home. Written answers start a paper trail, and a paper trail is the most useful thing you can build in the first year.
Yes. Under the federal Child Find requirement, you can request a special education evaluation in writing at any time. If the school district says no, it has to give you that refusal in writing with its reasons. Monitoring is not intervention, and watching a child struggle for three more months is not a plan.
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