Dyslexia affects how children learn to read, write, and process language, but with the right understanding, parents can play a vital role in supporting progress. In this article, I share the full text of my guide Understanding Dyslexia: A Guide for Parents. The guide explains phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and auditory processing, and shows how these skills form the foundation of literacy.
You can also download the free PDF handout from my TES shop if you’d like your own copy to keep.
Learning to Read and Write: What Skills Are Involved?
Learning to read and write is a complex process that depends on the development of a range of cognitive skills. These include:
- Recognising and distinguishing sounds in words
- Remembering the order of sounds and letters
- Understanding how spoken language maps onto written symbols
- Holding auditory information in memory long enough to use it
- Focusing attention on relevant sounds in speech
Children with dyslexia often struggle in one or more of these areas. One of the most important and widely studied of these skills is phonological awareness.
Phonological Awareness: The Foundation of Literacy
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and work with the sound structures of spoken language. This includes being able to:
- Notice that words can rhyme
- Break words into syllables
- Recognise the first or last sound in a word
- Blend sounds together to make words
- Take words apart into their individual sounds
- Change one sound in a word to make a new word
Without strong phonological skills, learning to read can be extremely difficult. Children who struggle to hear, break down and manipulate the sounds in words are likely to find phonics instruction confusing and frustrating. This is because phonics relies on the ability to link sounds (which are heard) to letters (which are seen).
Phonemic Awareness: A Key Skill in Learning to Read
Phonemic awareness is a specific part of phonological awareness. It refers to the ability to hear and manipulate the smallest units of sound in words. For example, the word cat has three phonemes: /c/ /a/ /t/.
Phonemic awareness is essential because:
- It allows children to blend sounds together to read words
- It helps them break words into sounds for spelling
- It supports accurate speech perception and vocabulary development
Phonemic awareness is developed through listening activities and does not rely on print.
When Auditory Processing Makes It Harder
Some children with dyslexia also have difficulties with auditory processing. This means that although their ears work normally, their brain finds it harder to make sense of the sounds they hear.
For example, they may struggle to:
- Notice small differences between similar sounds (like /b/ and /d/)
- Focus on a speaker’s voice when there is background noise
- Recognise where a sound is coming from
- Understand a word when part of it is missing
- Keep track of sounds long enough to repeat them or break them into parts
These difficulties can make it much harder to develop phonemic awareness, because the child’s brain is not processing speech clearly or consistently. It is a bit like trying to learn a new language when the words all sound muffled or jumbled.
When this happens, a child may:
- Confuse similar-sounding words
- Mishear instructions
- Struggle to match sounds to letters
- Feel frustrated or tired after listening for a long time
If a child finds it difficult to “tune in” to the sounds of speech, learning to read and spell becomes even more challenging. They may need extra help to practise hearing, identifying and working with sounds in clear and structured ways.
The good news is that these skills can be improved with the right support. Activities that help children focus on listening, notice patterns in sound, and play with the building blocks of words can all help to strengthen the foundations they need for reading.
A Developmental Pathway for Reading and Writing Skills
Children develop phonological and phonemic awareness gradually. This sequence provides a useful guide for understanding your child’s learning and planning support.
| Skill | What it involves | Typical age range |
| Word awareness | Recognising that speech is made of separate words | Age 2+ |
| Rhyme and alliteration awareness | Enjoying and identifying rhymes and similar initial sounds | Age 3+ |
| Syllable awareness | Clapping or counting parts in a word (e.g. hippo = 2 syllables) | Ages 3 to 4 |
| Rhyme generation | Creating words that rhyme with others | Ages 3 to 4 |
| Phoneme identification | Recognising first, middle or final sounds in words | Age 5+ |
| Phoneme blending | Putting sounds together to form words (e.g. /b/ /a/ /t/ = bat) | Ages 5 to 6 |
| Phoneme segmenting | Breaking words into individual sounds (e.g. dog = /d/ /o/ /g/) | Ages 5 to 6 |
| Phoneme isolation | Identifying where a sound occurs in a word | Ages 5 to 7 |
| Phoneme deletion | Saying what remains when a sound is removed (e.g. smile without /s/) | Ages 6 to 7 |
| Phoneme substitution | Swapping one sound for another to make a new word (e.g. cat to hat) | Ages 6 to 7 |
This sequence can guide both classroom instruction and home support. If your child finds a particular level difficult, it may help to revisit the earlier skills. Activities like rhyming games, clapping syllables, and playing with sounds can build confidence and provide essential practice.
A child with dyslexia will often need structured and explicit teaching in these skills, along with plenty of time and repetition. Progress may be slower, but with the right support, improvement is always possible.
Final Thought
Understanding how reading develops helps you to support your child with confidence. Focus on small steps, celebrate progress, and remember that many successful people with dyslexia have gone on to thrive once they received the support they needed.
If you found this guide useful, please feel free to share it with other parents, teachers, and carers who may benefit. You can also download the free handout from my TES shop to keep a copy for yourself.
For more articles and resources on supporting neurodivergent children in education, visit my main website or explore my TES teaching resources
Written by Kate Coldrick, literacy tutor, educational writer, and neurodiversity consultant. For more resources, visit katecoldrick.com
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Written by Kate Coldrick, an educator and writer based in Woodbury near Exeter.
Kate Coldrick – Home Education Consultant for Neurodivergent Learners 