Glossary
A glossary of terms
Assessment reports and school meetings come with their own vocabulary. Here is what the most common terms actually mean, in plain English.
You shouldn't need a dictionary to understand a report about your own child. If you meet a term that isn't here, ask me, I'm always happy to explain.
ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
A condition affecting attention, impulse control and activity levels. It often co-occurs with dyslexia, and is considered both a mental health condition and a specific learning difficulty.
Assessment (Learning Needs Assessment)
A structured session of standardised tests looking at reading, spelling, phonological skills, memory and processing speed. The result is a written report showing a child's strengths, their difficulties, and what support will help.
Decoding
Turning printed letters into the sounds and words they represent, in other words, reading a word from the page. Children with dyslexia typically find decoding slow and effortful.
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD / dyspraxia)
A specific learning difficulty affecting movement and coordination, from handwriting to catching a ball to organising equipment. It often co-occurs with dyslexia.
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)
A difficulty understanding or using spoken language that isn't explained by another condition. A child with DLD may struggle to follow what's said to them or to put their own ideas into words.
Dyscalculia
A specific learning difficulty with number: understanding quantities, recalling number facts and grasping how numbers relate to each other. It is not the same as simply finding maths hard.
Dysgraphia
A difficulty with the physical and organisational side of writing: letter formation, handwriting speed and getting ideas down on paper.
Dyslexia
A specific learning difficulty that primarily affects reading and spelling. It stems from how the brain processes information, particularly the sounds within words, and is not linked to intelligence. See Understanding dyslexia.
EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan)
A legal document issued by the local authority for children whose needs go beyond what a school can provide from its own resources. It sets out the child's needs and the support that must be provided.
Encoding
The reverse of decoding: turning sounds into letters, in other words, spelling. Dyslexia usually affects encoding at least as much as reading, and spelling difficulties often persist longer.
Fluency
Reading accurately, at a reasonable speed, with expression. A child may read accurately but so slowly and effortfully that nothing is left over for understanding; fluency is what frees the brain up to comprehend.
Intervention
Targeted teaching designed to close a specific gap, distinct from ordinary classroom teaching. For dyslexia, effective intervention is structured, cumulative and multisensory, delivered regularly over time.
Morphology
How words are built from meaningful parts: roots, prefixes and suffixes. Knowing that "un-help-ful" is three chunks, not eight letters, makes longer words far easier to read and spell.
Multisensory learning
Teaching that engages several senses at once, seeing, hearing, saying and doing, so learning is anchored in more than one way. A cornerstone of structured literacy programmes.
Orthography
The spelling system of a language: which letters and letter patterns are used to represent sounds. English has a famously complex orthography, which is part of why learning to read it is hard.
Percentile
Where a score sits compared with other children the same age. A percentile of 25 means the child scored higher than 25 out of every 100 children their age. The 50th percentile is exactly average.
Phoneme
The smallest unit of sound in a word. "Cat" has three phonemes: c-a-t. "Ship" also has three: sh-i-p. Hearing and juggling phonemes is exactly what dyslexic learners find hardest.
Phonics
Teaching reading by linking sounds (phonemes) to the letters that represent them. Systematic phonics is the evidence-backed starting point for all early readers, and matters even more for dyslexic ones.
Phonological awareness
The ability to notice and play with the sounds inside spoken words: rhyming, clapping syllables, spotting that "sun" and "sock" start the same. It develops before reading, and weaknesses here are one of the strongest early signs of dyslexia.
Processing speed
How quickly the brain takes in information and responds to it. A child with slower processing speed can do the task, they just need more time. Under time pressure, their results stop reflecting their ability.
Rapid naming (RAN)
How quickly a child can name a row of familiar things, colours, objects, letters or digits. It sounds trivial, but slow rapid naming is strongly linked to reading difficulty, which is why assessors test it.
Reading comprehension
Understanding what has been read, the whole point of reading. Comprehension depends on decoding, fluency, vocabulary and language skills working together, so a difficulty in any of those can show up here.
SEND
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, the umbrella term used in English schools and law for children who need support beyond what ordinary teaching provides.
SENDCo
The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Coordinator: the teacher in every school responsible for SEND support. Usually your first port of call if you're worried about your child.
SpLD (Specific Learning Difficulty)
A difficulty with particular aspects of learning, in a child whose overall ability may be anywhere on the range. Dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia and ADHD all sit under this umbrella. See SpLDs & co-occurrence.
Standardised score
A test score converted so it can be compared fairly against children of exactly the same age. Most tests set the average at 100, with roughly 85 to 115 counting as the average range.
Structured literacy
An approach that teaches reading and spelling explicitly and in a careful order, sounds, letters, syllables, morphology, with each step building on the last and nothing left to guesswork. This is the approach behind the programmes I use.
Visual stress
Discomfort some people experience when looking at text: glare, blurring or apparent movement. It is not dyslexia and doesn't cause it, though some people experience both. Coloured overlays can ease visual stress, but they don't teach reading. See dyslexia and vision.
Working memory
The brain's notepad: holding information in mind while using it, like remembering a sentence long enough to write it down, or holding three instructions while carrying out the first. Working memory is often weaker in dyslexic learners, which is why long instructions get lost and copying from the board is exhausting.