If your child has a disability and is not reading at grade level, you might hear from your school that your child will catch up eventually and that you should practice more at home. If your child has a cognitive disability, on the other hand, you might hear a very different story — that your child will likely never learn to read, and so instead you should focus on teaching them to read a few words, such as their name, by sight. Your IEP team might say that everything can be read aloud to your child by an aide or by a computer, so they really don’t need to improve their reading.
On a similar note, does your child still have the same reading goals they did in kindergarten — such as to recognize all the letters in the alphabet — but has never been taught how the letters form words with meaning?
In this article, we’ll review some of the challenges of reading instruction for students with different disabilities and how you might address specific challenges. We’ll look at some myths about teaching students with disabilities to read and how to address both these myths and the resistance to teaching all kids to read. We’ll explore the use of assistive technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide readers with text at a level they can read successfully.
For expert insights, we spoke to Christopher J. Lemons, PhD, an associate professor of special education in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University; Kathleen Whitbread, PhD, from Whitbread Educational Consulting; and Cherie Dorreen, an education advocate.
There are many common myths about reading instruction. Here are the top five:
One question parents often ask is whether students with different disabilities need different reading instruction or programs. After all, reading is based on brain science, and neurodivergent brains might learn differently. Our experts all agree that the basic steps (the scope and sequence) to learning to read are the same, although the pacing and teaching strategies might differ for neurodivergent kids. For example, students need to learn to segment a word into phonemes, but some might need a visual strategy to be successful at the skill, while others might do well with a tactile approach.
Since perhaps as many as 1 in 5 people have dyslexia, many children are likely to read poorly because of difficulties with phonological processing. Children with dyslexia have a neurological difference that makes it difficult for them to match sounds and letters or to decode or encode words, but they may excel when it comes to verbal reasoning and spoken vocabulary. Evidence-based strategies are multisensory, using visual, auditory, and tactile approaches. Students often draw letters in sand or tap phonemes out on their arm. The multisensory approach is designed to strengthen the neural connections between different areas of the brain.
Another diagnosis that is commonly misdiagnosed as dyslexia, due to its impact on learning to decode, is auditory processing disorder. This might show up on standardized tests as part of a triennial assessment but can be confirmed by a developmental audiologist. Dorreen explains, “I’ve had students, for example, that when you read them ‘the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,’ they hear ‘the brown fox quick jumps lazy dog,’ and they have to then unjumble that sentence to be able to comprehend what you’ve said to them.”
Dyslexia is not the only reason why students with disabilities have difficulty learning to read. Students with ADHD might struggle with the working memory aspect of understanding what the words are, or they might have difficulty with long-term or short-term retrieval and getting that information. As Dorreen says, “What you might see is a child, who is able to understand those words while they’re in the classroom or that week or while that’s the word of the day. But then that information has to solidify in short-term memory and go into long-term memory. Then from long term memory, what we’re looking at is, how is a child able to access it and recall that information back out of the long-term memory or out of their storage bank of words? So ADHD might impact the student’s ability to be able to do that.”
Students with VI face particular challenges learning to read. It is important that every student with low vision be given a Learning Media Assessment to determine whether they need to be taught to read braille. The Expanded Core Curriculum should include teaching braille in addition to using assistive technology (AT).
For d/Deaf students, reading can also be a challenge because they have limited or no access to phonological code and may be delayed in learning language due to lack of (spoken or signed) language exposure, according to Goldin-Meadow & Mayberry. Profoundly d/Deaf students can learn to read well, and often do so either using an auditory visual approach or by mapping American Sign Language (ASL) to the printed word. For d/Deaf students, learning ASL can often be the entry point for literacy. The California Department of Education has a list of Literacy Milestones for d/Deaf Children set out in SB 210.
While the science of reading research has tended to focus on students with dyslexia, our sources tell us that the same strategies also support reading instruction for students with cognitive disabilities. Dr. Lemons explains most of the research on the science of reading has focused on students who are at risk for or have a disability, particularly those with learning disabilities like dyslexia or those with disabilities that require less extensive support. For these students, it’s important to focus on phonological awareness (the sounds of language), building a strong vocabulary, and improving comprehension — all through clear, step-by-step instruction.
Dr. Lemons explains that for students with Down syndrome or intellectual disabilities, the research is a bit more recent than the research referred to as the science of reading. So which components of the science of reading actually work for students with intellectual disabilities? As Dr. Lemons explains, the science of reading still is very important for this group of learners in many of the strategies, including focusing on the five essential components of reading instruction and providing instruction that’s very explicit and systematic.
Dr. Whitbread agrees with Dr. Lemons that the process of learning to read is the same for all kids, regardless of what disability they have:
At the same time students with cognitive disabilities are likely to take longer to learn to read. For example, students with Down syndrome often have weaker auditory memory and are typically slower in developing language due to speech issues, so they are often still working on foundational reading skills in later grades, even high school. Dr. Lemons says, “When we’re thinking about students who are moving into middle school but they’re still working on early phonics skills, how do we do that in ways that are age appropriate and that are interesting?” It is also problematic that many secondary schools have no education specialists who are trained in foundational reading skills, and there often isn’t an obvious time to build structured literacy into the schedule.
For many children with intellectual disability (ID) and Down syndrome, reading is still often limited to “functional reading” (focused on environmental words such as “exit” or their name) and sight words, based on the false belief that children with cognitive disabilities cannot learn to decode. Dr. Lemons’ research has shown that kids with intellectual disabilities can make progress in learning to decode using the same structured literacy strategies that work for all kids. He explains that, too often, family members, society, and even teachers have very low expectations for how much students with intellectual disabilities can achieve in terms of literacy. He hopes that science can change that, saying, “Learners with more extensive support needs can become independent readers. Reading is an important skill to focus on and teach them.“ Teachers need support to understand the potential for improving reading skills and how using evidence-based practices to support these learners fosters inclusion.
Teachers need to know how challenges such as limits on working memory affect student learning , and how we scaffold. It’s important to make data collection an ongoing part of reading instruction so that we can focus on the most critical missing skills. Using a curriculum-based measurement (CBM) to regularly assess progress allows the team to ensure that instruction is on track and try different strategies if the student has stalled. Ask your teacher to share any CBM with you regularly. If you have access to data such as through iReady, take some time to understand what the data is showing you. If you don’t know how to interpret the data, you can ask for a parent-teacher conference to explain it. Any test score, even an end-of-unit test in class, is part of your student’s records, so teachers must share this information with parents. See our /resources/2704 to learn more about how reading is measured.
Dr. Whitbread tells us that one of the things that is very important, particularly for kids who have intellectual disabilities, is to work with the speech-language pathologist because “you don’t want to have separate goals, like a separate comprehension goal that the reading teacher addresses, and then the child has a speech-language goal that is also addressing that, maybe in a different way.” So, for example, you might have an academic goal for reading or listening comprehension that is answering who, what, where questions in response to a reading, and you might also have a goal for speech therapy to answer these types of questions. Dr. Whitbread suggests combining the IEP goals and having the speech therapist partner with the teacher on the goal.
Dr. Whitbread points to the issues of general comprehension — meaning what the child can understand about the world — and reading comprehension — meaning what the child can understand based on a passage they have read — which are often equated. “Particularly with kids with intellectual disabilities, most will understand so much more than they’re able to read. I see a lot of times where we’re measuring reading comprehension and then equating that to language comprehension, which does a terrible disservice to children. Their goals end up being very low-level and unambitious. So it is very complex and difficult, especially for parents or professionals who don’t have a reading background, to be able to understand all the moving parts and then how they all work together.”
One way to approach general comprehension would be to assess and strengthen the child’s ability to understand language in multiple ways, such as listening comprehension (what the child can understand from listening to a passage read aloud or to an audiobook). Dr. Lemons also recommended a structured approach to teaching children reading comprehension skills by using a systematic method, such as a graphic organizer, to gather information from the text and then use it in a sentence. It’s also common that children with a language delay might not understand how questions work, and therefore might have difficulty answering comprehension questions even if they were able to read and understand the passage. A fun way to develop an understanding of questions is to have the child practice asking questions and getting answers from their peers.
For many children whose language comprehension might exceed their ability to answer comprehension questions, the use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) can supplement their verbal use of language and promote their understanding of the structure of language.
Often families are told that their children are not ready for reading yet, particularly children who are not yet speaking. Dr. Whitbread rejects this notion wholeheartedly — children as young as age three can start learning to read regardless of their stage of language development. “That is one of my biggest frustrations with this population of kids, that whole issue of they’re not ready until they’re speaking in full sentences, until they’re doing this, until they’re doing that. And my philosophy has always been, you’re ready, you’re three, you’re in preschool, you’re ready, and we can start so much earlier… Don’t wait, because if you wait you lose so much time.” In Dr. Whitbread’s experience, it’s much more challenging to teach young adults who never learned to read: “They do learn, but it is nowhere near as easy as when you’re young.“
Parent tip for early reading: Dr. Whitbread suggests starting with nursery rhymes and doing the same things as you would do for neurotypical children, maybe at a higher intensity for kids with intellectual disabilities or with any sort of delay in their learning. In this clip, Dr. Whitbread talks about how she learned to teach non-speaking children to read by studying methods used to teach d/Deaf children.
Many parents might be wondering, “Can I ask for a specific reading program for my child?” Often, schools are reluctant to promise a specific program in the IEP because that program might depend on a qualified instructor who they cannot guarantee will be available. Access to trained reading teachers is at the heart of equitable literacy instruction. Special education teachers in separate classrooms for students with intellectual disabilities and educators in autism programs often have little training in reading instruction beyond functional reading.
Make sure programs are consistent across all classrooms. Bear in mind that which specific program that you use might not be as important as consistency. Dr. Whitbread tells us that they use the Wilson program in her clinic, not specifically because it's the best program (though it is certainly good!) but because it is used in many schools in their state. Consistency is very important, as all our experts pointed out.
Dr. Lemons also tells us that this is important for students who are receiving reading instruction outside the general education classroom in a pull-out model: “I do think it’s very important [to] look at how the reading program in the gen ed classroom is aligned with the reading instruction that’s being received outside of the room… But you’re working on the reading intervention in one room with flash cards with one font, and then you go to the other classroom and you change the font and put it on a piece of paper, and now all of a sudden, I can’t read it.” While it is important to focus on generalization and support students by taking that learning out of the resource room, it might be frustrating when even the language is not aligned between the pull-out intervention and the classroom curriculum. For example, asking ‘What’s the first sound in this word?’ Then in the other program, using the beginning sound.”
Dr. Lemons says that as one of our major goals is to have students included, it’s important that teachers are mindful about how the different approaches to teaching reading might conflict and be confusing. And if they are, it’s important to try to get back on the same page. You can try communicating with your child’s teacher for more information.
Given the school system’s (largely unmet) expectation that students can read proficiently by third grade, from fourth grade onward much of the curriculum is delivered through the written word and assessed through writing. Students with emerging literacy skills face a dilemma — how can they continue to learn to read and write while at the same time keeping up with the curriculum?
All our experts stressed the need for children to have access to content beyond their reading ability. For many kids, learning to read is a long process, but that should not stop their learning in other ways.
But some kids might move past third grade — or even into middle and high school — without becoming strong readers. When so much learning relies on written text, how can they keep up in the classroom? What’s the best way to help them access the material? And if they rely on having things read aloud, are they still getting enough reading practice?
Dr. Whitbread explains that learning content is a priority and that students should be receiving supports and accommodations to help them access that content. “In a content-area class, the focus should be on learning the content, and if a child is reading below grade, they’re not going to learn the content by reading the text themselves. Even though it would give them more reading time, I don’t think it’s productive reading time.”
Schools often offer modified texts at a student’s reading level. AI platforms that many teachers have access to can easily modify a text to an easier reading level so that the student can access the same content as their peers. It is important that kids practice reading at a level that they can comprehend.
Dr. Lemons explains that even a text that is slightly above a student’s reading level can result in frustration. He recommends that students practice reading texts that they are likely to read successfully, unless they are reading with support. If a student is reading independently and doing some comprehension work, he says, “We really want them reading at a very high accuracy, right above 95%, maybe 97%… but I do think it’s very clear that it’s really a waste of time to give a kid a passage where they’re only understanding 80% or 70% of the words. And I think as an adult, sometimes we think, ‘Oh, surely, that’s not that hard.’ But get a passage, get a book that you’re reading that you enjoy, and print it out and cross out one or two out of every ten words, then try to understand what that book is about. And it’s very, very difficult.”
We can show this by adding some nonsense words to a text from Judy Heumann’s speech to Congress in 1988. In this text, we randomly replaced 10% of the words in the passage to re-create the experience of someone reading with 90% accuracy.
My name is Judy Heumann. I am the oldest of three glarps born to an immigrant family. Like most other fleebles I was born without a disability. When I was one and a half years old, I blorted polio. Becoming disabled changed my family’s squorp and mine forever. My disability has made me a target for arbitrary and capricious fribbits from many persons with whom I come into contact. Over the zizzle, experience has taught us that we must be constantly aware of people’s attempts to plimble against us. We must be prepared at every moment to fight this discrimination.
As you can see, it is very difficult for a reader, even with knowledge of the subject matter, to work out the meaning from the context of the passage. When a student is working closely with a peer coach or a teacher, Dr. Lemons told us that we can use a more challenging text, perhaps a text that the child can read with only 90% accuracy independently, because the teacher or coach can provide support when they are challenged. Dr. Lemons gives an example of partner reading, when that support is right there and really immediate. Another example is using technology, where if the reader doesn’t know the word, they can click on it and the computer will tell them the word. These situations would warrant using a more challenging passage — for example, with more multi-syllable words and longer sentences.
Reading level is important when we are advancing kids through reading instruction. It’s related to the complexity of the phonics patterns, the complexity of the vocabulary, and the length of the words. But Dr. Lemons suggests that once a kid is reading at a sixth-grade reading level, he is less concerned that they are advancing through grade levels and more concerned about pivoting to comprehension.
There are many ways to modify text so that students who are reading to learn can access some of the content of a grade-level class, whether they are in a general education or a separate classroom. Sites like Teachers Pay Teachers often offer adapted versions of novels frequently used in English classes, but the adaptation might not be appropriate for your child.
To modify literature for an emerging reader:
Simplify the sentence structure: break long, complex sentences into shorter ones and avoid overly complicated grammar.
Replace difficult vocabulary: reduce multisyllabic words, look for easier synonyms for advanced words, and use concrete nouns and verbs instead of abstract concepts. Provide definitions or explanations for key terms where necessary.
Summarize complex ideas: you can do this by condensing intricate plot points into basic actions and motivations. Focus on the main characters and their key decisions.
Adapt descriptions: use simpler language to describe settings and characters, and avoid figurative language.
Maintain the central theme: you want to maintain the central theme of the original story in a way that is understandable for young readers.
Some teachers might have access to AI tools, such as QuillBot or Diffit, that can make the adaptations easily and quickly. We took a passage from The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, a novel that is often set for tenth-grade students in California and contains some beautiful and complex text, and we modified the text using AI.
The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled, broken, dry grass, and the grass heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog’s coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horse’s fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheep’s wool; sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed, every seed armed with an appliance of dispersal twisting darts and parachutes for the wind, little spears and balls of tiny thorns, and all waiting for animals and for the wind, for a man’s trouser cuff or the hem of a woman’s skirt, all passive but armed with appliances of activity, still, but each possessed of the anlage of movement.
We used CoGrader to create a first-grade version that is much easier to read. (We had to look up the word anlage!)
The road was surrounded by a bunch of messy, dry grass. The grass had fuzzy tops that could stick to a dog’s fur, little prickly balls that could get caught in a horse's legs, and burrs that could attach to sheep’s wool. This grass was full of seeds, just waiting to be spread everywhere. Each seed was ready to fly away with the wind, or to hitch a ride on animals, or even on a person's pants or skirt. The seeds were still, but they all had special ways to move and spread out.
If that is too difficult, ChatGPT also gave us a kindergarten-level passage that we thought seemed a bit tricky, so we added an illustration.
The road had dry grass on the sides. The grass had little seeds that could stick to animals and people. Some seeds could fly in the wind. Others could grab onto fur or clothes. The seeds did not move by themselves, but they were ready to go!
Modifying the text allows the student to join in some of the conversation about characters and plotline, but if the class is considering the figurative language in the passage, the student will be lost. For this reason, it might be necessary for the student to have access to both texts — for example, by having the original passage read to them.
We also asked ChatGPT to write the whole chapter at a first-grade level in just a few sentences.
Chapter Three: A turtle crawled slowly through the grass by the road. Its shell was big and round, and its strong legs pushed it forward. The turtle didn’t stop for anything. It climbed up a steep hill, using its legs to push and pull. When it reached the road, a car swerved to miss it, but a truck tried to hit it. The truck’s wheel flipped the turtle over. For a long time, the turtle stayed still, but then it wiggled and turned itself upright again. Some seeds stuck to its shell fell into the dirt. The turtle kept going, moving down the road, leaving a small trail behind.
Students who are learning to read while reading to learn need accommodations written into their IEP. Here are some examples of accommodations for reading:
For more examples of accommodations, check out or article List of Accommodations for IEPs and 504s.
AT is an essential component of any IEP for a student who is not yet reading at grade level. Apps such as Snap and Read allow students to take a photograph of a worksheet and have it read aloud to them. For older students, Speechify can read longer materials. Many students also use universal text-to-speech tools, such as Google’s Read&Write, or specialized screen readers. Many students access literature through audiobook platforms such as Bookshare and Learning Ally.
A student can also often have an accommodation in their IEP for an aide to read aloud for them. However, providing AT tools that students can manage themselves promotes independence and develops skills they can continue to use as an adult. Dorreen points out that the problem with using text-to-speech technology is that the student does not get the practice of reading.
Many defenders of maligned balanced literacy programs like the curriculum materials because they focus on making learning to read fun for kids. The scientific evidence did not show that to be effective because not being able to read is not fun, and excludes a student from so many meaningful life opportunities. Structured literacy can still be fun, though!
For example, Dr. Whitbread tells us that kids with Down syndrome or intellectual disabilities need a lot of repetition of the skill in order to master it, which is rarely possible in a school day. But when kids practice reading in context in the course of their day and during regular activities, that is actually more powerful. She gives us some examples:
Learn digraphs at home. A digraph is a combination of two letters representing one sound, as in “SH.” Parents can help their child learn a digraph like "SH" by pointing out words that start with it in everyday life. For example, when they hear "ship," they can say, "Ship starts with SH!" They can label household items, find objects that start with SH, and even involve caregivers such as babysitters or bus drivers. The key is to reinforce the sound and its spelling throughout the day in a fun and natural way. This way, the child is getting reinforcement throughout the day that the letters “SH” make the sound “SH,” and this is what it looks like.
Read to your child and talk about what you’re reading. For example, for older kids who are working on finding the main idea of a book or passage, which is such a difficult concept, parents can read and take a minute to ask, “What do you think the most important thing was?” You can of course ask this in language your child understands. But when you do this often enough, kids start to move forward in their learning just from that added practice.
Make opportunities to read at home. As Dr. Whitbread explains, children do need to have more opportunities to read, “and that is where I think parents can really be helpful about increasing their reading time at home in order to make up for that.”
Dorreen reminds us how important it is to the learning process that kids enjoy reading, and that is perhaps the most important role for parents: to read to their children and follow the lead of what the teacher is working on with them at school. “We want reading to be pleasurable, and often what we find with kids who are struggling to learn to read is that they’re working five times harder just to get the very basics of literacy and the very basics of reading, then they’re coming home — and we don’t want parents to be pushing reading at them. We want them to be able to sit down with their parents and to be able to have their parents read them a good story that they’re going to enjoy. Because while they’re listening to that good story, they’re picking up vocabulary awareness, they’re picking up comprehension, and they’re growing in so many other areas. And we don’t want them to have stress at school and then further stress at home.”
In the end, Dr. Lemons reminds us that “although we think reading is important, it’s one aspect of your child and one aspect of your family. And regardless of your child’s reading abilities, they are an important and valued person, and we need to remember that, because I think sometimes we get very frustrated, especially for students who are just making slower progress. I’ve had some teachers do amazing things and I think the most important thing is that we never limit what we are teaching or how we’re expecting students to respond to that teaching based on reading level. So it’s kind of two tracks. We need to be continuing and building reading skills as much as we can, but we also need to be making sure that regardless of reading level, we are getting content in and content out.”
Find some fun reading apps and tools in our article Reading Curricula, Tech, Apps, and More! You can also find a list of books to read (all on disability awareness and acceptance) in our article here.
Save your favorite resources and access a custom Roadmap.
Get Started
