Dyslexia and Literacy Support
“I feel like I’m failing my child because I don’t know how to help them.”
If you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not alone. Dyslexia doesn’t come with an instruction manual, but that doesn’t mean you have to figure it out on your own.
At Little Voices we can find you a clear roadmap, so you can stop feeling overwhelmed and start supporting your child with confidence.
💡 You’re not failing, you just need the right tools.
When a child is finding reading, spelling or writing difficult, it can be hard to know what is really going on.
Some children have difficulty learning letter-sound patterns. Some can read words accurately but remain very slow and effortful. Some have trouble remembering spelling patterns, reading fluently, understanding what they read, or getting their ideas down in writing. Others have had intervention before, but progress has been slower than expected.
At Little Voices, dyslexia and literacy support is not based on a one-size-fits-all program. We look carefully at each child’s literacy profile, their underlying areas of difficulty, and the way reading and writing are affecting their confidence, learning and participation at school.
Our goal is to help families understand what their child needs next, even if you are not yet sure whether your child has dyslexia, needs assessment, or simply needs more targeted literacy intervention.
Dyslexia is not one single profile
Children with dyslexia can have very different strengths and areas of difficulty. One child may struggle mainly with decoding, another with spelling, reading fluency, language or written expression, and many experience a combination of these.
This is why we do not begin by asking, “Which program should this child do?” Instead, we ask: “What is making literacy difficult for this child, and what is the most useful starting point?”
Understanding each child’s individual profile helps us choose support that is targeted, meaningful and responsive to their needs.
Is this service right for your child?
Literacy and / or dyslexia support may be appropriate if your child:
finds reading slow, tiring or frustrating
guesses words rather than reading them accurately
has difficulty sounding out unfamiliar words
struggles to remember spelling patterns
reads accurately but very slowly
avoids reading or writing tasks
has trouble keeping up with classroom literacy demands
has had intervention but is not making expected progress
has been diagnosed with dyslexia
is suspected of having dyslexia or another learning difficulty
understands ideas well when they are explained orally but struggles when reading or writing
is losing confidence because literacy feels harder than it should
You do not need to know exactly what your child needs before making an enquiry. Part of our role is to help work that out.
Areas we consider
When planning literacy support, we consider the different skills that contribute to reading, spelling and writing.
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Phonological awareness is the ability to notice and work with the sounds in spoken words. This includes skills such as identifying sounds, blending sounds together, segmenting words into sounds, and manipulating sounds within words.
Weaknesses in phonological awareness can make it harder for children to learn how spoken words connect to written letters and spelling patterns.
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Phonics involves understanding the links between letters and sounds. Decoding is the ability to use this knowledge to read unfamiliar words.
Some children need explicit, systematic teaching to help them understand the alphabetic code and apply it when reading and spelling.
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Orthographic knowledge refers to a child’s understanding of written spelling patterns and word-specific knowledge. This helps children recognise familiar words quickly and spell words more accurately.
A child may be able to sound out words but still have difficulty remembering how words look, choosing the correct spelling pattern, or reading words automatically.
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Rapid automatic naming, often called RAN, refers to how quickly a child can retrieve and say familiar visual information, such as letters, numbers, colours or objects.
RAN weaknesses can be associated with slow, effortful reading. These children may learn phonics skills but still take longer to become fluent readers.
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Reading fluency involves reading accurately, smoothly and at an appropriate pace. Fluency matters because if a child is using most of their effort to read the words, they may have less mental energy left to understand and remember what they have read.
Some children need targeted fluency work, not just more phonics.
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Reading comprehension is strongly connected to oral language. A child may be able to read the words on the page but still struggle to understand the meaning if their vocabulary, sentence comprehension or background knowledge is weak.
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Spelling is not just memorising words. It involves phonology, orthographic knowledge, morphology, grammar and meaning.
Some children also need support to plan, organise and express their ideas in writing, especially as school writing demands increase.
Study skills, essay planning and assistive technology
For upper primary and secondary school students, literacy support may also include study skills, assignment planning, essay structure, paragraph writing, summarising information, and preparing for tests. This helps students manage the increasing reading and writing demands of school more independently.
We also support students to use assistive technology in practical ways, such as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, audiobooks, typing supports, digital planning tools and proofreading supports. These tools can help students access the curriculum and show what they know without being held back by reading, spelling or handwriting difficulties.
Supporting confidence as well as skills
Many children with dyslexia or literacy difficulties have spent years feeling that reading and writing are harder for them than for other students.
Some begin to avoid literacy tasks. Some say they are “bad at reading” or “not smart.” Others work extremely hard but become exhausted trying to keep up.
Intervention needs to build skills, but it also needs to protect confidence.
We help children understand how their brain learns, why literacy may feel difficult, and what strategies can help. When children understand their own learning profile, they are often better able to participate, persist and advocate for what they need.
Programs and approaches we may draw from
We draw on evidence-informed, structured literacy approaches and adapt intervention based on each child’s strengths, needs and response to therapy.
This may include elements of:
Orton-Gillingham or multisensory structured literacy approaches
Sounds-Write
Read3
explicit phonics and decoding instruction
decodable text practice
repeated reading and fluency work
morphology and word study
vocabulary and oral language intervention
written expression support
assistive technology and accommodations
Programs can be useful, but they are not the whole answer. A program needs to be matched to the child’s profile, delivered explicitly, monitored carefully, and adjusted when needed.
Not sure what your child needs? That's okay. Tell us a little about what's been happening and we'll help you work out the most appropriate next step.
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Difficulty learning nursery rhymes
Delayed speech sound production and / or language development
Difficulty learning early concepts such as colours and numbers
Difficulty learning the letters in their own name
Difficulty recognising rhyming words
Difficulty matching words that begin with the same sound
A family history of learning difficulties
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Poor understanding of letter sound links
Slow and inaccurate word recognition
Difficulty decoding unfamiliar words
Struggles to read, write and spell
Sometimes struggles to find the right word (when speaking)
Avoids or hates reading
Gets frustrated when reading
Difficulty following instructions
Struggles to remember names, dates, months or sequences
Family members with a diagnosis of dyslexia or other learning difficulties like ADHD
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Slow and laboured reading
Struggles to comprehend written information
Suffers from anxiety related to school or schoolwork
Takes much more time to complete assignments or exams than others
Struggles to remember names, dates, months or sequences
Chooses not to read for pleasure
Has a history of literacy difficulties in school
Struggles to fill out forms or applications
Disorganisation and difficulties with planning
Family members with a diagnosis of dyslexia or other learning difficulties like ADHD
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As young as 6 years in some cases. The myth that we need to wait until a child is 7 or 8 before a diagnosis can be made still prevails. Nadine Gaab, Ph.D. states “While a diagnosis of dyslexia currently requires repeated failure learning to read, this does not mean that early signs of dyslexia cannot be observed in preschool (or possibly earlier). Deficits in phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, verbal working memory, and letter knowledge have been shown to be robust precursors of dyslexia in children as young as age three (Puolakanaho et al., 2007).”
“Repeated failure in learning to read” means that a child must have had sufficient opportunities to be able to learn to read, using an explicit and structured approach to teaching. If a child has had 6 months of teaching using such an approach, and they’re not making expected progress, this is a good time to do a screening assessment. The ‘wait to fail’ approach doesn’t work. The earlier these children can be identified, the better their outcomes, and the likelihood of any mental health impact is far less.
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While diagnosis of dyslexia has historically been an area for educational psychologists, speech pathologists with appropriate qualifications and experience can also diagnose. See more about that in my blog post: Can a Speech Pathologist diagnose dyslexia?.
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NO! A diagnosis of dyslexia is not required in order for a child to receive support at school. In Victoria, there have been a number of changes over the past couple of years, with the introduction of the Disability Inclusion program and the online Diverse Learners Hub. The Victorian Department of Education and Training have some great documents that support schools and teachers to better understand dyslexia, and how to better support students in the classroom. See more here. https://www.vic.gov.au/learning-difficulties