All About Reading – A Proven Dyslexia Reading Program

According to the International Dyslexia Association, "Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge."

(Definition of Dyslexia. International Dyslexia Association. Retrieved April 28, 2021.)

Dyslexia is thought to be one of the most common language-based learning disabilities. It is the most common cause of reading, writing, and spelling difficulties. Of people with reading difficulties, 70-80% are likely to have some form of dyslexia. It is estimated that between 5-10% of the population has dyslexia, but this number can also be as high as 17%.

(Frequently Asked Questions. Dyslexia Help at the University of Michigan. (2021). Retrieved April 28, 2021.)

Download our Symptoms of Dyslexia Screening Checklist to help you determine if a child has the signs of dyslexia.

As you help your student, it can be helpful to understand what it is like to actually have dyslexia. A student with dyslexia may experience any of these issues:

• You may struggle to remember letter names and sounds, even after lots of practice.
• It can be hard to remember or understand what you read because your brain is working so hard to just decode the words.
• Words that were easy for you to read and spell one day may be difficult the next day.
• Your brain doesn’t automatically recognize words, even words that you have seen many times.
• It is difficult to finish school assignments.
• You may get very frustrated and even angry at yourself because things that seem so easy for everyone around you are so difficult for you.

Yes! The Orton-Gillingham approach uses multisensory methods that restructure how the brain works, making it possible for kids with dyslexia to learn to read and spell. Using multisensory instruction helps the neurons in the respective parts of the brain fire at the same time and wire together to create neural networks. These neural networks allow the brain to store and retrieve information much more effectively and efficiently. As neuroscientists say, "brain neurons that fire together, wire together."1 In short, with this approach, dyslexic students can be very successful with reading!

1 Sousa, D.A. (2017). How the brain learns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, a Sage Publishing Company.

Although children with dyslexia need a lot of support and encouragement, our lightly scripted reading and spelling programs guide you every step of the way, with no special training required. We teach the phonics, rules, and strategies your student needs to become a proficient reader and speller for life. Our color-coded letter tiles and hands-on activities provide instruction through sight, sound, and touch in a logical and incremental manner. Explicit, step-by-step lessons are customizable, with lots of review to help the child’s learning stick.

First, be sure to use an Orton-Gillingham-based program like All About Reading. The Orton-Gillingham approach has successfully helped students with dyslexia and other reading challenges for over 80 years. An OG program makes learning to read easier with instruction that is multisensory, sequential, incremental, cumulative, individualized, based on phonograms, and explicit. Students with dyslexia need lots of academic and emotional support. And although kids with dyslexia are often very smart, they may need positive encouragement to persevere with reading and spelling. Children who are over-focused on their reading and spelling struggles may need help recognizing their unique talents and abilities to. Hang our free poster on your fridge as a reminder: 30+ Important Things That Tests Can’t Measure.

If a child has any difficulties with reading or spelling, see our reading and spelling placement tests to help you decide where to start in All About Reading and/or All About Spelling.

This is actually very common, because spelling is more difficult to master than reading. We teach reading and spelling separately for just this reason! You can focus on just the skill that your student needs to master. All About Spelling is a scripted, open-and-go program based on the Orton-Gillingham approach that teaches spelling in the most effective way possible.

If you’re putting in the time and effort to use a reading program with your student, you want to make sure that it works! We hear from grateful parents and tutors every day. Here are just a few reviews we have received from grateful parents:

• Angela shared, "I can’t believe the difference your curriculum has made for my 9-year-old daughter who has dyslexia. She can read well now and doesn’t cry every time it’s time for reading! Your curriculum has been such a blessing. Thank you!"
• Sophia shared, "My 9-year-old son, who has struggled with severe dyslexia is finally reading!! And the best part is that he loves the program so much, he even asks to do lessons on the weekends! Thank you, All About Reading."
• And another happy mom shared, "This program is so amazing! My dyslexic son said he has learned more in 10 lessons of All About Reading than he did in 7 years of public school! It's like a light bulb went on and he is finally understanding."

Yes! All About Reading and All About Spelling have worked well for both middle school students and teen learners. Older students who use All About Reading can skip activity book pages that seem "too young," but the lessons, word cards, fluency practice pages, and readers are appropriate at any age. The illustrations in our readers appeal to students of all ages, and our Letter Tiles App is perfect for older students. All About Spelling will work with older children with little or no modifications.

All About Reading is open-and-go for busy parents and teachers (no special training required!) and includes decoding skills, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, and lots and lots of reading practice. It teaches more than 5500 words and has 133 beautifully illustrated stories to delight your student. One of the biggest differences between All About Reading and most other programs is that we teach reading and spelling separately. Children often progress more quickly in reading than spelling but with our single-subject approach, they can progress as quickly as possible in reading while taking as much time as they need to succeed in spelling.

Letter reversals issues are experienced by a significant percentage of students with dyslexia! Reversals that have become ingrained require consistent, daily practice over time to un-do. Download our free e-book How to Solve Letter Reversals to discover four methods you can use to work on tough reversal problems.

We would love to help! You can call us at 715-477-1976 or email us at support@allaboutlearningpress.com. We’re here to help!