Why Early Intervention Matters for Kids with Dyslexia

An Q&A with Dr. Jack Fletcher about view why early intervention is so important for kids with dyslexia.

Why is Early Intervention Important?

Early intervention is very important because, in many instances, with effective instruction, we can prevent dyslexia. It includes early screening because, in order to identify children who are at risk, we need to identify them early and introduce effective instruction at a time when we can really optimize a child's access to print.

It's much better to intervene earlier than to wait until the child actually fails because remediation is demonstrably less effective. For example, a recent study by Maureen Lovett found that outcomes were almost twice as good if interventions were delivered in first and second grade than in third grade.

Why Does Early Intervention Work?

We understand a lot about why early intervention works. In order to learn to read—because it's an acquired skill—you have to give the brain an opportunity to learn about the relationship between what words look like and what words sound like.

Ultimately, we want people to read at the whole word level. We want them to be lexical readers, meaning they recognize the whole word based on the statistical properties of the letters.

To do that, you must access print early and develop considerable exposure to print, which allows the brain to program the systems necessary for automatic reading.

The Consequences of Delayed Intervention

If you don't get early intervention, or if you wait to fail, or if you get early intervention and still struggle, those systems don’t develop well. It becomes very difficult to get the exposure needed to make those brain systems work.

Delays in Identifying Struggling Readers

What actually happens inside schools is that children are identified relatively late in their development. For example, in special education, the average age of identification is 10 years old, and many children are identified even later than that. This is just the opposite of what we should be doing.

We should be identifying children with reading and behavior problems as early as possible to prevent the cumulative problems that emerge, including some ancillary difficulties, such as anxiety.

Anxiety and Reading Struggles

One of the key attributes of children who don't respond adequately to reading instruction is the development of anxiety.

Suggested Citation:

National Center on Improving Literacy. (2025). Why Early Intervention Matters for Kids with Dyslexia. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education Programs. Retrieved from improvingliteracy.org.