Dyslexia therapy: what actually works and what to do first

Last updated 2026-07-09

What is dyslexia therapy, and is it different from regular reading help?

Yes, it's different. Regular reading help at school often means more time with a book, reading groups, or comprehension worksheets. Dyslexia therapy means systematic, explicit instruction in how the English sound and spelling system works, delivered with enough intensity and repetition for a brain that processes phonological information differently.

The scientific term is structured literacy. The International Dyslexia Association defines structured literacy as instruction that is explicit, systematic, sequential, and cumulative, covering phonology, sound-symbol correspondence, syllable structure, morphology, syntax, and semantics ^[1]. That is not what most classroom reading instruction does. Most classroom reading instruction leans on context clues, sight-word memorization, and leveled-reader exposure. Those methods are nearly useless for kids with dyslexia.

Dyslexia affects roughly 15-20% of the population and is the most common learning disability ^[2]. It's a phonological processing problem, which means the brain struggles to map spoken sounds onto written symbols. No amount of re-reading or extra encouragement fixes that. Targeted decoding instruction does.

If your child's school says he just needs "more exposure to books" or "reading practice at home," that is not dyslexia therapy. It's a delay. Knowing the difference matters, because you have legal rights to actual intervention, and understanding what effective therapy looks like helps you push for it.

Which dyslexia therapy programs actually have scientific evidence?

The underlying method matters more than the brand name. Programs built on structured literacy principles with peer-reviewed research behind them include Orton-Gillingham (the original framework), Wilson Reading System, Barton Reading and Spelling, SPIRE (Specialized Program Individualizing Reading Excellence), RAVE-O, and LIPS (Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing). Several of these appear on What Works Clearinghouse, the Department of Education's evidence database ^[3].

Orton-Gillingham isn't a single packaged program. It's a set of principles. Dozens of programs call themselves OG-based, with varying fidelity. Wilson Reading System and Barton are probably the most widely used packaged implementations in the U.S. Both are explicit and sequential. Wilson requires trained tutors. Barton was specifically designed so that a motivated parent with no teaching background can deliver it at home.

Here's what the research actually shows. A 2021 meta-analysis in the Journal of Learning Disabilities found that structured literacy interventions had a mean effect size of 0.51 on decoding outcomes for students with dyslexia, which is a clinically meaningful improvement ^[4]. Effect sizes above 0.40 are considered moderate to large in educational intervention research.

RAVE-O is worth knowing about because it targets both phonological processing and reading fluency, which is the pairing you need for kids with a double deficit, the combination of slow phonological processing and slow rapid naming. If your child's assessment flagged a rapid naming deficit in addition to phonological weaknesses, a program that only does phonics may not be enough.

Programs with weak or no peer-reviewed evidence include colored overlays, tinted lenses, vision therapy for tracking (distinct from legitimate orthoptic care for convergence insufficiency), brain gym, and most apps that claim to train the brain generally. I'd skip them.

How much does dyslexia therapy cost, and can insurance cover it?

Private dyslexia tutoring from a certified specialist runs roughly $80 to $200 per hour in most U.S. metro areas, with some certified educational therapists at the low end and educational psychologists or Wilson-certified tutors at the high end. Rural areas often see lower rates, $50 to $80, and online tutoring has expanded access a lot since 2020.

Barton Reading and Spelling, which parents can deliver themselves, costs about $299 per level and there are 10 levels, so figure $2,000 to $3,000 for the complete program if you buy it new. That sounds like a lot until you compare it to two years of weekly private tutoring.

Insurance coverage is rare but not impossible. A small number of states (Arizona, Texas, and a few others) have enacted education savings accounts or scholarship programs specifically for students with dyslexia that can pay for private tutoring or therapy ^[5]. Health insurance occasionally covers speech-language pathology services if phonological processing deficits are documented, because speech-language pathologists are licensed to treat phonological disorders. The medical billing code matters. It needs to be framed as a communication disorder, not a reading problem.

If your child has an IEP (Individualized Education Program), the school is required to provide appropriate reading intervention at no cost to you under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ^[6]. "Appropriate" doesn't automatically mean the best program available, but it does mean the intervention must be reasonably calculated to produce meaningful educational progress. That legal standard gives you more standing than most parents realize.

Tax-advantaged accounts matter too. Contributions to a 529 account can now be used for elementary and secondary school tuition, including tutoring services at an eligible institution, under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expansion ^[7]. Coverdell Education Savings Accounts have always allowed elementary and secondary education expenses. Check with a tax professional on your specific situation.

What are your child's legal rights to dyslexia services at school?

This is where a lot of parents get steamrolled, and knowing the law helps you push back.

IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. §1400 et seq.) requires public schools to provide a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) to all eligible children with disabilities, including those with specific learning disabilities like dyslexia ^[6]. The law says schools must use "scientifically based reading research" when providing reading instruction under IDEA. Dyslexia is named in IDEA's 2004 reauthorization as an example of a specific learning disability.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a separate, lower-threshold protection. Even if your child doesn't qualify for an IEP, she may qualify for a 504 plan, which requires accommodations that give her equal access to education. Accommodations under 504 might include extended time, text-to-speech tools, or reduced spelling penalties on content-area assignments. A 504 does not require the school to provide specialized reading instruction the way an IEP can.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights issued guidance in 2024 clarifying that using the word "dyslexia" in evaluation reports, IEPs, and Section 504 plans is appropriate, and that schools cannot avoid identifying dyslexia by using vague language like "reading difficulties" ^[8]. Before this guidance, many schools avoided the word entirely because they feared it implied a specific intervention mandate.

Here's the practical part. You have the right to request a full and individual evaluation in writing at any time. The school has 60 days (or your state's timeline, whichever is shorter) to complete it. If the school refuses to evaluate, they must give you written notice explaining why. That written refusal is your starting point for filing a complaint with your state education agency if you disagree.

For a deeper look at how evaluations work before you get to this point, the dyslexia test guide walks through what a proper assessment includes. And if you're not sure whether your child's struggles rise to the level of a learning disability, the signs of dyslexia overview can help you decide whether to push for a formal evaluation.

How long does dyslexia therapy take to show results?

Longer than you want, and it depends on severity. That's the honest answer every parent asks about and few providers say out loud.

Research suggests that children with dyslexia need at least 150 to 300 hours of structured literacy intervention to show durable gains in decoding ^[4]. At one 60-minute session per week, that's three to six years. At five sessions per week (what intensive summer programs provide), it could happen in one academic year. Intensity matters enormously, and this is one reason why one session per week of pull-out help at school is often not enough for kids with significant deficits.

A 2020 study in Annals of Dyslexia found that students who received more than 100 hours of OG-based instruction over two years showed significantly larger gains in word reading than students who received fewer than 100 hours ^[4]. Below about 50 hours, gains were small and often not maintained.

You'll typically see movement on phonemic awareness tasks and simple CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) word reading within the first 20 to 30 hours of good instruction if the program is working. If you see no change after 40 hours, that's a signal to look at whether the instruction is really structured literacy, whether the student has untreated vision or hearing issues, or whether the severity of phonological dyslexia is high enough to warrant a program with even more phoneme-level work.

Fluency lags behind accuracy. A child may decode words correctly before reading fluently at grade level, sometimes by a year or more. Managing that expectation matters, because parents sometimes stop therapy too early once word-level accuracy improves.

What does a typical dyslexia therapy session look like?

A well-run structured literacy session follows a predictable routine, and that predictability is on purpose. Dyslexic learners benefit from the pattern. Sessions typically run 45 to 60 minutes.

The session usually opens with phoneme drill: the tutor shows a letter card and the student says the sound, then the reverse. This is automatic responding practice. Then comes a review of previously taught phonogram patterns using a reading deck (student reads words) and a spelling deck (tutor says a word, student spells it aloud or writes it). New content is introduced explicitly: here is this sound, here is the letter that represents it, watch my mouth, feel where your tongue is. Then the student reads words, nonsense words, and decodable sentences using the new pattern. Finally, there's dictation: the tutor reads sentences and the student writes them, applying everything learned.

Multisensory techniques run throughout: saying sounds aloud while writing them, tapping syllables on fingers, using tiles or letter cards, air-writing. The multisensory piece isn't magic. It's a way of creating more retrieval pathways and keeping attention engaged, which matters for kids who are also frequently co-diagnosed with ADHD.

What a session should not look like: a student reading from a leveled reader while the tutor helps with tricky words, or a student doing phonics worksheets independently while the tutor watches. Those are not dyslexia therapy. They're general reading support.

If you're sitting in on sessions (you should be, at least occasionally), you want to see systematic, explicit teaching of sound-symbol relationships with the student actively producing responses, more than listening.

Should you use a school-based program or private dyslexia therapy?

Both can work. The real question is about quality and intensity, not setting.

School-based intervention has a big advantage: it's free and doesn't require transportation or afternoon scheduling. If your school has trained reading specialists and delivers structured literacy for 30 to 45 minutes a day, that can produce real progress. Some schools have adopted high-quality programs like Wilson or SPIRE schoolwide, and those students do well.

The problem is that many schools still use reading programs that are not structured literacy. The "reading wars" are mostly over in terms of research consensus, but implementation lags badly. A 2020 Education Week analysis found that only about 26% of teacher preparation programs in the U.S. taught the science of reading adequately ^[9]. Teachers who weren't trained in structured literacy don't deliver it effectively even when a school adopts a new curriculum.

Private therapy from a certified specialist, a Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT), a Wilson-certified tutor, or a Barton-trained provider, gives you more control over quality. You can observe sessions, review data, and change providers if progress stalls. The cost is real, but so is the quality control.

My honest take: if your school has a trained reading specialist running a genuine structured literacy program, use it and supplement at home. If your school is offering generic reading support or a program based on three-cueing (using picture and context clues to guess words), push for an IEP with a specific structured literacy mandate, and consider private tutoring in parallel while you fight that battle.

For a learning disability test through the school, you need a written referral. Start there if you haven't already.

How do you find a qualified dyslexia therapist or tutor?

The credential landscape is confusing. Here's what each title actually means.

A Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT) has completed a master's-level equivalent program in structured literacy and passed a rigorous exam through the Academic Language Therapy Association. This is probably the most demanding dyslexia-specific credential in the U.S.

A Certified Dyslexia Practitioner (CDP) or Certified Dyslexia Specialist (CDS) is credentialed through the International Dyslexia Association's CERI (Center for Effective Reading Instruction). These are well-regarded and require supervised hours.

A Wilson Certified Trainer or Wilson Reading System Level I/II Certified Clinician has completed Wilson's training and passed their exam. This credential is program-specific but rigorous.

An educational therapist certified through the Association of Educational Therapists (AET) has broader training in learning disabilities but may or may not specialize in structured literacy specifically. Ask.

A reading specialist with a state credential (title varies by state) has completed a graduate program in reading. Quality varies wildly depending on whether their program taught structured literacy.

Where to find providers: the IDA provider directory at dyslexiaida.org, the ALTA provider directory, and Wilson's provider locator are the most reliable starting points. Online tutoring platforms like Barton (if you want to train as a parent-tutor), or services that vet for structured literacy credentials, have expanded access for families in rural areas.

Ask any prospective tutor three things. What program do you use? How do you track progress? When would you tell me it's not working? A good therapist answers those questions specifically. Vague answers about "multisensory methods" and "meeting kids where they are" are not reassuring.

Can parents deliver dyslexia therapy at home, or do you need a professional?

Parents can deliver effective structured literacy at home, with real caveats.

Barton Reading and Spelling was designed for parent delivery. Susan Barton built a pre-screening process to make sure the parent (more than the child) can actually hear phonemes before investing in the program. The program provides scripted lessons, video tutorials, and clear progress markers. Families who follow it consistently report meaningful gains, and it shows up on informal provider directories as widely used.

The caveats: it takes 30 to 45 minutes a day, four to five days a week, and consistent execution over months. Life gets in the way. The parent-child dynamic is also genuinely harder. Kids often resist parents as teachers in a way they don't resist outside tutors. If your child shuts down or the sessions become contentious, switching to a professional tutor is not a failure. It's practical.

For supplemental work at home, sight word flashcards and sight words worksheets can reinforce high-frequency words that structured literacy programs introduce. High-frequency word practice works best when the words are already phonetically accessible to the child, or when they're taught with explicit phoneme and morpheme connections rather than pure memorization. Dolch sight words are a commonly used list, though many structured literacy programs now prefer the Fry or Sight Word lists that better reflect current reading research.

The ReadFlare reading toolkit has free phonics card sets and progress trackers that pair well with programs like Barton or any structured literacy approach you're running at home. It's worth having alongside whatever program you're using.

The floor for home practice is this: even if you can't do a full program, reading aloud to your child every day, playing with rhymes and sounds, and doing five minutes of phoneme blending practice keeps phonological awareness developing. It won't replace therapy, but it's not nothing.

What should a dyslexia evaluation include before starting therapy?

You need a proper evaluation before starting therapy, not because the therapy changes dramatically based on the subtype, but because the severity and specific profile affect how intensive the intervention needs to be, and because a formal diagnosis is often required to access school services.

A thorough dyslexia evaluation should include phonological awareness testing (rhyming, blending, segmenting, manipulation), phonological memory (digit span, nonword repetition), rapid automatized naming (RAN), single word reading, reading fluency, spelling, and sometimes listening comprehension to rule out broader language issues. The Woodcock-Johnson, KTEA-3, and CTOPP-2 are commonly used tools ^[10].

Understanding your child's specific profile matters. Phonological dyslexia (the most common type) looks different from surface dyslexia, where phonics are adequate but orthographic memory is weak. Deep dyslexia involves semantic errors and is rarer. Visual dyslexia is a contested term, and most researchers now attribute what parents call visual dyslexia to phonological and orthographic processing deficits rather than visual system problems. Knowing the profile helps you and a therapist set priorities.

If you're seeing potential signs of math difficulty too, number dyslexia (dyscalculia) co-occurs with reading-based dyslexia in roughly 40% of cases, so a thorough evaluation often tests both.

The IDA's knowledge and practice standards lay out a framework for what evaluations should contain ^[1]. If you've already had an evaluation but aren't sure it was thorough enough, a second opinion from a neuropsychologist or educational psychologist who specializes in reading disabilities is worth pursuing. The ReadFlare parent advocacy kit has a checklist of what to look for in an evaluation report and a letter template to request school testing.

For a breakdown of what a dyslexia test involves and how to interpret results, that guide goes into the specific subtests and scores in more detail.

How do you track whether dyslexia therapy is working?

Progress monitoring is not optional. If your child's therapist or school can't show you data, that's a problem.

Good structured literacy programs include curriculum-based measures: oral reading fluency probes, phonics screeners, and word reading accuracy tests administered every four to six weeks. DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) is widely used in schools for this purpose ^[11]. AIMSweb and Acadience are similar tools. At home or in private therapy, Barton has built-in mastery tests between levels, and most CALT-supervised programs track the same way.

What you're looking for is a slope of improvement over time, not perfection at any single session. A child with dyslexia who is making adequate progress should be moving up the percentile rankings in oral reading fluency relative to grade-level norms, even if she stays below average for a while. If she's flat for 8 to 12 weeks despite consistent attendance, the program, the intensity, or both need to change.

For IEP-based services, the law requires the school to report progress toward IEP goals at least as often as general education report cards go home ^[6]. Ask for those progress reports and make sure they contain actual data, more than teacher observations. "She is making progress" with no numbers is not a progress report.

At home, even a simple chart of how many words per minute your child can read aloud from a grade-level passage, tracked monthly, gives you objective information. It's harder than it sounds to stay emotionally neutral about your child's reading. The data helps.

One benchmark worth knowing: a second-grader at grade level reads roughly 90 words per minute with 95% accuracy. A third-grader reads around 110 wpm ^[11]. Those aren't rigid cutoffs, but they give you a reference point for how far behind your child is and how much ground there is to make up.

What does a comparison of the main dyslexia therapy approaches look like?

Parents often feel like they're choosing between programs with similar-sounding names and competing marketing claims. Here's a straight breakdown of the options you'll run into most in the U.S.

Program	Delivery	Evidence Level	Typical Setting	Rough Cost
Orton-Gillingham (direct)	1:1, trained tutor	Strong (foundational research base) [1]	Private tutoring	$80-200/hr
Wilson Reading System	1:1, certified tutor	Strong (What Works Clearinghouse) [3]	School or private	$80-150/hr
Barton Reading & Spelling	1:1, parent or tutor	Moderate (OG-based, limited RCTs)	Home or private	~$299/level
SPIRE	Small group, trained teacher	Moderate-strong	School	Part of IEP
RAVE-O	Small group, trained teacher	Strong for fluency + phonics [4]	School or clinic	Research setting
LIPS (Lindamood)	1:1, trained clinician	Strong for severe phoneme deficit	Private clinic	$100-200/hr
Generic school reading support	Group, classroom teacher	Weak for dyslexia	School	Free (but may not help)

No program here has been proven clearly better than the others in head-to-head trials. The research consensus is that fidelity of implementation matters more than which program you pick. A well-delivered Wilson program beats a poorly delivered LIPS program every time.

If your child is in kindergarten or first grade, any strong structured literacy program started early will produce better outcomes than the same program started in fourth grade. The brain's phonological learning window doesn't slam shut after age 8, but it does narrow. Early intervention is where the research is clearest.

Frequently asked questions

At what age should dyslexia therapy start?

As early as signs appear, which can be as young as age 4 or 5 through kindergarten screening. The strongest evidence for intervention is in grades K-3, when phonological learning is most efficient. But therapy works at any age, including in adults. A 40-year-old who never got help can learn to decode more reliably with structured literacy; it just takes more hours than it would have in childhood.

Is dyslexia therapy the same as speech therapy?

They overlap but aren't the same. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are trained in phonological processing and often provide dyslexia therapy, especially for younger children or those with severe phoneme-level deficits. Educational therapists and reading specialists handle dyslexia therapy too. The method matters more than the provider's title. What you want is someone trained in structured literacy, whoever holds that credential.

Can my child get dyslexia therapy through the school without an IEP?

Sometimes, through Multi-Tiered Support Systems (MTSS or RTI). Schools can provide Tier 2 or Tier 3 reading intervention without a formal IEP, and some of that intervention may be structured literacy. The difference is that MTSS interventions aren't legally binding the way IEP services are. If your child needs intensive, sustained support, an IEP gives you enforceable rights that MTSS alone doesn't.

What is the Orton-Gillingham approach?

Orton-Gillingham (OG) is a structured, multisensory framework for teaching reading developed in the 1930s by neurologist Samuel Orton and educator Anna Gillingham. It teaches phoneme-grapheme relationships explicitly and sequentially, using visual, auditory, and kinesthetic channels simultaneously. Most evidence-based dyslexia programs today are either directly OG or explicitly OG-influenced. OG itself is a framework, not a single packaged curriculum.

Does dyslexia therapy work for adults?

Yes. Adult brains retain phonological learning plasticity, and structured literacy produces measurable gains in word reading and fluency for adults with dyslexia. Progress is typically slower than in children and requires more hours to achieve similar gains, but adult learners are often more motivated. Several community colleges and literacy organizations offer adult structured literacy programs. The International Dyslexia Association has a provider directory that includes adult services.

How many days a week should dyslexia therapy happen?

Research favors frequency over session length. Three to five sessions per week produces faster gains than one or two, even if total weekly hours are similar. This is why intensive summer programs can produce in weeks what school-year pull-out produces in a year. If you're working with a private tutor and can only afford once a week, add a parent-led practice session two or three other days to increase frequency.

What's the difference between dyslexia therapy and tutoring?

Regular tutoring typically reinforces what's being taught in class and helps with homework. Dyslexia therapy is a structured, systematic, evidence-based intervention that explicitly teaches the phonological and orthographic skills that dyslexic readers haven't internalized. A tutor who isn't trained in structured literacy and doesn't use an evidence-based program is not providing dyslexia therapy, regardless of how helpful they are in other ways.

Are there any dyslexia therapy apps that actually work?

A few apps deliver genuine structured literacy practice: Graphogame has peer-reviewed research support for phoneme-grapheme training, and Teach Your Monster to Read aligns reasonably with phonics sequences. Most apps branded for dyslexia have little or no independent research behind them. Apps work best as supplements to a real structured literacy program, not as standalone interventions. They're useful for daily practice between sessions, not replacements for a trained tutor.

What happens if the school refuses to provide dyslexia therapy?

If the school refuses to evaluate, they must give you written notice with their reasons. If they evaluate and find your child ineligible but you disagree, you can request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) at public expense. If you believe the school isn't providing FAPE, you can file a complaint with your state education agency or request a due process hearing under IDEA. The ED.gov parent center has free resources on each of these steps.

Does a child need an official dyslexia diagnosis to get school services?

Not necessarily. Under IDEA, eligibility for special education is based on the presence of a specific learning disability that adversely affects educational performance, not on a named diagnosis. Many children receive IEP services for reading without the word dyslexia appearing anywhere. That said, 2024 ED Office for Civil Rights guidance makes clear that schools can and should use the word dyslexia when appropriate, and some states have specific dyslexia laws that trigger additional screening and support.

Can dyslexia be cured by therapy?

Dyslexia is a lifelong neurological difference, not a disease with a cure. What therapy does is build compensatory reading pathways in the brain and systematically teach the phonological and orthographic skills that didn't develop automatically. With adequate intervention, many people with dyslexia become fluent, accurate readers who use assistive technology for speed. The goal is functional, independent reading, not making the brain neurotypical.

How do I know if a therapist is actually trained in structured literacy?

Ask directly: Are you CALT-certified, Wilson-certified, or credentialed through CERI? How many hours of supervised structured literacy practice do you have? Which program do you use and why? A qualified specialist will answer specifically. Then verify: the Academic Language Therapy Association, International Dyslexia Association, and Wilson all have online directories where you can confirm credentials. Don't rely on a therapist's website alone.

What reading level gains should I expect from dyslexia therapy?

Gains vary by severity, age at intervention start, and hours of instruction. A meta-analysis in the Journal of Learning Disabilities reported a mean effect size of 0.51 for decoding outcomes from structured literacy interventions. In practical terms, a child receiving intensive structured literacy (4-5 days/week) for a full school year might gain 1.5 to 2 grade levels in decoding accuracy, though fluency gains often lag. Kids with severe deficits gain more slowly but consistently with sustained treatment.

Sources

1. International Dyslexia Association, Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading: Structured literacy instruction is defined as explicit, systematic, sequential, and cumulative, covering phonology, sound-symbol correspondence, syllable structure, morphology, syntax, and semantics.
2. Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, Dyslexia FAQ: Dyslexia affects approximately 15-20% of the population and is the most common learning disability.
3. U.S. Department of Education, What Works Clearinghouse: Wilson Reading System and other structured literacy programs appear on the What Works Clearinghouse evidence database with positive or potentially positive ratings for reading outcomes.
4. Stevens et al., 2021, Journal of Learning Disabilities / Annals of Dyslexia, structured literacy meta-analysis: Structured literacy interventions had a mean effect size of 0.51 on decoding outcomes for students with dyslexia; students receiving more than 100 hours of OG-based instruction showed significantly larger gains in word reading than those receiving fewer hours.
5. National Conference of State Legislatures, Dyslexia Legislation: Several states including Arizona and Texas have enacted education savings accounts or scholarship programs for students with dyslexia that can fund private tutoring.
6. U.S. Department of Education, IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), 20 U.S.C. §1400: IDEA requires public schools to provide a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) to all eligible children with disabilities, including those with specific learning disabilities such as dyslexia, using scientifically based reading research; schools must report progress toward IEP goals at least as often as general education report cards are issued.
7. IRS, Tax Benefits for Education: Information Center: The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expanded 529 account use to include elementary and secondary school tuition up to $10,000 per year, and Coverdell ESAs have always allowed elementary and secondary education expenses.
8. U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Dear Colleague Letter on Dyslexia 2024: The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights issued guidance in 2024 clarifying that using the word 'dyslexia' in evaluation reports, IEPs, and Section 504 plans is appropriate and that schools cannot avoid identifying dyslexia by using vague language.
9. Education Week, Teacher Preparation and the Science of Reading, 2020: Approximately 26% of teacher preparation programs in the U.S. taught the science of reading adequately as of 2020.
10. Woodcock, McGrew & Mather, Woodcock-Johnson IV (WJ-IV), and Wagner et al., CTOPP-2, standardized assessment tools used in dyslexia evaluation: The Woodcock-Johnson, KTEA-3, and CTOPP-2 are commonly used standardized tools in dyslexia evaluations covering phonological awareness, phonological memory, rapid naming, word reading, and spelling.
11. University of Oregon, DIBELS 8th Edition Norms (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills): DIBELS oral reading fluency benchmarks indicate a second-grader at grade level reads roughly 90 words per minute and a third-grader reads around 110 words per minute with 95% accuracy.