Reading & Literacy What the Research Says

3 New Studies to Know on Screening Students for Dyslexia

By Sarah D. Sparks — January 04, 2024 3 min read
Scrambled letter tiles on a blue background
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Early, universal screening for reading disabilities is fast gaining traction among states, with 46 states now requiring some kind of dyslexia assessment in the early grades.

An estimated 1 in 5 U.S. children has a reading disability like dyslexia, but it can be difficult for school-based assessments, or screeners, to differentiate between reading difficulties caused by academic disruptions or insufficient instruction and those related to language processing or other disorders that would qualify students for special education services.

Emerging research suggests new ways educators should think about how to identify dyslexia, particularly among vulnerable populations.

See also

Students in the hiking club explore during an early morning walk around the campus before the start of the school day on March 30, 2023.
Students in the hiking club explore during an early morning walk around the campus before the start of the school day on March 30, 2023.
Jaclyn Borowski/Education Week

1. Students of color may be underidentified

Students of color and those in high-poverty schools may be significantly underidentified for reading disabilities, finds a new study in the journal Nature Science of Learning.

Researchers used a teacher-administered dyslexia assessment to screen K-2 students in New Orleans schools serving predominately Black students. The state requires every student to be assessed for dyslexia at least once before grade 3, but the screening identified nearly half of the children at risk of reading disabilities, and a majority of these were later diagnosed as having dyslexia.

“Schools don’t want to identify kids as having a problem,” said co-author Bennett Shaywitz, a child neurology researcher at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital. “The hope is that studies like this will encourage schools to want to do that. “

Co-author Sally Shaywitz said the results are far from atypical at a time when the average Black 4th grader readers below basic on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, but she said many schools with low-performing readers do not target interventions for dyslexia specifically. “It means that educators teaching kids in those classrooms have to be aware of [dyslexia],” she said. “Those kids should have been identified at least as at risk and then should have fuller evaluations.”

2. Attention deficits may play a role in dyslexia

A new study in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology suggests early attention problems could play a role in dyslexia.

A team led by researchers at the Center for Brain and Cognitive Development at the University of London trained more than 100 children ages 7-12 to associate speech sounds with eight symbols, and then to use the symbols to read real and made-up words. The researchers tracked how well the students paid attention during the symbol training and how well they focused on the specific sounds during distractions.

For both regular readers and those with dyslexia, children’s auditory attention during training predicted how accurately they could match sounds with symbols and use them to read made-up words.

Phonemic awareness has long been associated with early reading development, researchers said, and “poor attentional skills may constitute a risk during the early stages of reading acquisition, when children start to learn letter–speech sound associations.”

The results suggest early screening for attention deficits, particularly in listening skills, could help identify students at risk of later reading problems.

3. Struggling readers affected well into adulthood.

Children don’t just grow out of dyslexia if it’s not treated. A longitudinal study in the journal Nature Science of Learning suggests children’s early reading proficiency can predict their literacy into their 40s.

As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, researchers tracked reading achievement over more than three decades for more than 300 children who started school in the early 1980s They found that students’ 1st grade reading performance and particularly their reading growth over the first five years of school was strongly linked with their reading ability at age 42.

That link was even stronger for children whose early reading skills would qualify them as having dyslexia. Only about a third of children in the study who were identified as dyslexic ever received interventions, and the quality of services varied significantly for those who did.

“When children are in the first few grades, kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades, the slope of reading acquisition is very steep,” said Sally Shaywitz, who also co-authored that study with her husband, Bennett."That’s when you’d like to catch the kids so that they can get some intervention. But as they get older there, the slope sort of flattens out and they don’t respond to intervention as easily.”

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and K-12 education jubs at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Student Well-Being K-12 Essentials Forum Social-Emotional Learning 2025: Examining Priorities and Practices
Join this free virtual event to learn about SEL strategies, skills, and to hear from experts on the use and expansion of SEL programs.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Professional Development Webinar
Inside PLCs: Proven Strategies from K-12 Leaders
Join an expert panel to explore strategies for building collaborative PLCs, overcoming common challenges, and using data effectively.
Content provided by Otus

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Reading & Literacy Quiz Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Cultivating Student Engagement in Reading?
Answer 7 questions about cultivating student engagement in reading.
Reading & Literacy Q&A Why Reading Support Classes Help High Schoolers Succeed
Biology, literature, calculus, U.S. history—all high school courses, regardless of subject, require a strong literacy skills.
4 min read
Jennifer Norrell, superintendent of East Aurora School District 131, stands for a portrait at the Resilience Education Center in Aurora, Ill., on Dec. 4, 2024.
Jennifer Norrell, superintendent of East Aurora School District 131, at the Resilience Education Center in Aurora, Ill., on Dec. 4, 2024.
Jamie Kelter Davis for Education Week
Reading & Literacy 5 Ways Teachers Can Get Boys to Love Reading
Students' reading scores have hit record lows, with boys' scores falling furthest. Pleasure reading could help.
5 min read
An elementary student reads on his own in class.
An elementary student reads on his own in class.
Allison Shelley/EDUimages
Reading & Literacy Researchers Created a Phonics Program With ‘Dramatic’ Results. How It Works
Consistent implementation of the 30-minute-a-day program fueled the results.
4 min read
Teacher holding up a card with the letters "sh" and a young elementary student writing with pencil on paper. The desk shows other cards with letters and a tablet device.
iStock/Getty