Support your child with understanding and confidence.
Recognise possible signs of dyslexia, understand the assessment process and discover practical ways to support your child at home and at school.
Home should support learning, confidence and wellbeing.
Supporting a dyslexic child at home is not about providing hours of extra schoolwork or trying to become your child’s therapist or teacher. It is about creating a safe and encouraging environment in which your child can learn in ways that work for them.
Understand Your Child’s Dyslexia
Dyslexia does not look exactly the same in every child. Difficulties may involve reading, spelling, writing, fluency, working memory or processing written information.
Ask the professionals who assessed your child to explain their findings and recommendations in language you understand.
Dyslexia is not a measure of intelligence.
Protect Their Self-Esteem
Repeated difficulty with reading and schoolwork can affect a child’s confidence. Praise effort, persistence, progress and strengths instead of focusing only on marks or mistakes.
Try saying: “I can see that this is difficult for you. Let’s work through it together.”
Needing additional support does not make your child less capable than their peers.
Keep Reading Enjoyable
Continue making books, stories and language part of everyday life. Read to your child even when they are old enough to read independently.
Audiobooks can provide access to age-appropriate stories and information without requiring your child to decode every word.
Allow enough time when they read aloud and avoid correcting every error.
Separate Learning from Exhaustion
Dyslexic children may work considerably harder than their peers to complete reading and writing tasks.
After a demanding school day, excessive additional homework can lead to frustration and exhaustion.
Use short, focused practice sessions where appropriate and follow the recommendations of teachers and relevant professionals.
Quality is more important than quantity.
Use Multisensory Learning
Many dyslexic learners benefit from explicit teaching that involves more than one sensory pathway.
- Say the sound.
- See the letter or word.
- Trace or write it.
- Build words using letters or tiles.
- Use the word in meaningful language.
Provide clear, structured and repeated opportunities to build literacy skills.
Use Technology as Support
Assistive technology can reduce unnecessary barriers and help dyslexic learners demonstrate what they know.
- Text-to-speech and speech-to-text
- Audiobooks and digital texts
- Spellcheckers and word-prediction tools
- Organisational and study tools
Technology should complement appropriate literacy teaching and suit your child’s individual needs.
You do not need to become your child’s teacher.
Your role is to provide understanding, encouragement and a secure place where effort and progress are recognised.
Help your child recognise their strengths and potential.
Dyslexia is only one part of who your child is. Celebrate their strengths, work with the adults supporting them and remind them that they are far more than a diagnosis.
Discover Their Strengths
Dyslexia is only one part of who your child is. Make time for activities in which they can experience competence and success.
This could be sport, art, music, technology, building, problem-solving, animals, drama or another area of interest.
Children need opportunities to feel: “I am good at something.”
Work Together with the School
Maintain open communication with your child’s teachers, the school’s learning-support team and relevant professionals.
Share what works well at home and ask what strategies are being used at school.
Where support or accommodations are recommended, ask how they will be implemented and monitored consistently.
Don’t Compare Your Child
Measure your child’s progress against their own development—not another child’s reading speed, spelling ability or academic performance.
Dyslexic learners may develop particular skills at a different pace.
Celebrate progress, even when it appears small. Moving from avoiding reading to willingly picking up a book is meaningful progress.
Don’t Make Dyslexia Their Identity
Instead of thinking, “She is my dyslexic child,” remember that she is your child who has dyslexia.
There is a profound difference. Your child is not a diagnosis.
They are a whole person with abilities, interests, personality, dreams and potential.
Know When to Ask for Help
If your child continues to experience significant difficulty despite appropriate support, seek guidance from appropriately qualified professionals.
Reading difficulties can arise for different reasons. It should not automatically be assumed that every child who struggles with reading has dyslexia.
Accurate identification leads to appropriate support.
Be Your Child’s Safe Place
Your child may experience enough pressure at school. Home should be a place where they feel valued for who they are—not for their reading level, spelling marks or report.
Listen, encourage, celebrate their strengths and advocate when necessary.
“Dyslexia does not define you. It is something you have—not who you are.”
A final message for parents
You do not have to have all the answers. Your most important role is not to fix your child’s dyslexia. It is to understand your child, protect their confidence, advocate for appropriate support and help them recognise their own potential.
The accommodations application step-by-step process.
The process begins when a learner’s support needs are identified and continues through school-based support, documentation, district review and a formal outcome. Parents remain part of the process throughout.
Parents and caregivers must remain involved
The parent or caregiver should be included throughout the decision-making process of the SIAS Policy.
Teacher identifies a struggling learner
The journey begins when the teacher identifies that a learner may be experiencing barriers and requires additional support.
Teacher completes the Learner Profile and SNA1
The teacher records the learner’s needs, existing support and relevant classroom information.
Teacher completes the ISP
An Individual Support Plan is prepared and reviewed once per term to monitor the learner’s needs and progress.
SBST completes SNA2 and DBE 124
The School Based Support Team completes the next stage of the support-needs assessment and required documentation.
SBST gathers information and parental consent
The School Based Support Team captures the relevant information and obtains consent from the parent or caregiver.
DBST receives the documents and application
The completed documentation and application are submitted to the District Based Support Team.
DBAC approves or declines the application
The District Based Accommodations Committee considers the application and makes a decision.
DBAC informs the SBST of the outcome
The decision is communicated to the School Based Support Team so that the next action can be taken.
Implementation or appeal
If approved, the accommodations are implemented. If declined, the School Based Support Team may appeal the decision.
Reviewed at each educational phase
The support and accommodations are reviewed during Grades 4–6, Grades 7–9 and Grades 10–12.