What Can Individual Faculty Do to Support Students with Dyslexia?

  • Read the Fact Sheet for Anyone Teaching Dyslexia
  • Commit to making their classes, departments, and programs dyslexia-friendly environments, or better neurodiverse-friendly environments (click on “Applications” for concrete advice | examples of initiatives at other Universities).
  • Use the principles of Universal Design for Learning to ensure equitable access for all learners, including those with reading processing delays, low vision, multi-lingual learners, and others with perhaps undiagnosed needs. Guidelines for UDL based on the principles.
  • Routinely grant accommodations and extra time for reading and writing to students with dyslexia.
  • Ensure electronic textbooks and reading materials are available.
  • Ensure that any written material that you use in class can be read aloud by a computer. This includes prompts, study guides, slide decks, as well as readings. Unless pdfs are in PDF/US format, assume they are not machine readable (448). Creating Accessible Documents
  • Publish instructions and handouts in docx format, link to files hosted on OneDrive
  • Publish/provide all reading materials necessary to complete an assignment at least 4 weeks before the due date
  • Design documents you write yourself in ways that present less written material per page with no more than two directions in a sentence. Larger fonts, double spacing, wide margins, high contrast background colors, and bullets or numbers are also helpful.
  • Supply in class textual material the class period before using it in class
  • Refer students to reading support at the Student Academic Success Center
  • Provide opportunities for dyslexic readers to talk through the material with you, a TA, or a tutor on a one-on-one basis (449). 
  • “Students with dyslexia need to engage in pre-task discussion before they can embark on a task independently” (Reid 2016).
  • Allow dyslexic students to prepare oral reports ahead of time rather than requiring instant oral responses in class (453). 
  • Interpret phonological slips (It’s not the heat; it’s the humanity [for humidity]) as phonological slips, not as a lack of knowledge. Phonological slips are a result of confusing the sounds of language, so they should not be mistakenly interpreted as lack of knowledge (55, 453). 
  • Grade written work on content rather than on form, especially spelling (453-54).
  • Permit students to use predictive-text assistive writing technologies designed for people with dyslexia, such as Co:Writer, Read & Write, and Real Writer and Reader.