A parent asked me recently whether her son’s late talking had anything to do with his reading. It is one of the most common questions I get, and there is a clear, readable answer to it over at Speech and Language Link. Their magazine The Link carried an article called Dyslexia and speech and language difficulties: is there a connection? on pages 4 and 5 of Issue 13, published on 1 March 2019. It was written by Rachel McMullen, Education Manager at the British Dyslexia Association. What follows is my short summary of it in my own words, and you can read the original in full through the link at the foot of this post.
Her starting point is that dyslexia is a language difficulty. Its roots sit in phonology, the sounds of speech. Children have to hear those sounds, blend them into words when they read, and pull them apart again when they spell. Mapping sounds onto letters is the heart of early reading, and building a child’s awareness of how sounds make and break words improves both decoding and spelling.
Reading, though, is more than decoding. We read to get meaning, and meaning needs vocabulary and grammar. A child can sound a word out accurately and still not understand the sentence it sits in. Weak spoken language is one of the main reasons reading comprehension breaks down, so the article warns against pouring everything into phonics and leaving language development to look after itself.
That is where the two areas meet. Dyslexia and speech and language difficulties share very similar cognitive ground: phonological awareness, verbal memory and the speed at which a child processes what they hear. All three underpin talking and listening, and difficulties in all three are features of dyslexia.
They are not the same thing, though, and the article is careful about this. A child whose reading and writing sit broadly in line with their spoken language may have wider learning difficulties rather than dyslexia. And, as Rachel McMullen puts it, "not all children with dyslexia have problems with spoken language". Many are strong talkers. In fact the gap between the ideas a child can express out loud and what they manage on paper is often the very first clue.
For those children, good language becomes a cushion. They can follow a story well even when the mechanics of reading are hard, which is why audiobooks and text to speech matter so much. They keep a child reading, in every sense that counts.
The article also sets out what each of the shared difficulties looks like day to day. A child with weak phonological awareness struggles to hear and move individual sounds around, so sounding words out is slow going. A child with verbal memory difficulties finds it hard to hold new words long enough to store them, and finds instructions and mental work in the classroom tiring. A child who processes language slowly needs longer to take in what has been said, to find an answer, or both, and reading unfamiliar words at speed is hard, which then drags on comprehension.
It closes with practical classroom advice that travels perfectly well into a kitchen at teatime. Cut the background noise when something important is being said. Use your child’s name first, so their attention is already there. Give one instruction at a time, in the order you want it done. Keep your own language plain and go steady. If they have not understood, say it again the same way before you try rephrasing it, because a new set of words is one more thing to decode. Leave a long pause for the answer, longer than feels comfortable. And above all, make it visual: show as much as you tell.
The last word in the article is the one I would underline. Every child is different, even two children with the same label. Knowing your own child well is what makes support work.
What this means for families
If you are worried about your child’s talking as well as their reading, mention both. Speak to your GP, your health visitor or your child’s school about a referral to speech and language therapy. That is not something I provide, but it is a straightforward request to make and schools are used to it.
If it is reading and spelling that worry you, the useful first step is finding out where the difficulty actually sits. Screening and a learning needs assessment give you that picture, and regular 1-to-1 work builds from it. Either way, the classroom tips above cost nothing and you can start tonight.
My thanks to Speech and Language Link for publishing the piece, and to Rachel McMullen of the British Dyslexia Association for writing it. It is worth reading in full.