When “Making Progress” Isn’t Enough in Dyslexia Intervention
Guest Post by Megan Pinchback, MBA, LDT, CALT is the owner and founder of Dyslexia On Demand.
Understanding Meaningful Educational Benefit for Students with Dyslexia
If you are parenting a child with dyslexia, you have likely heard this phrase in an IEP or 504 meeting: “She’s making progress.”
And yet you still see the struggle. You still see the exhaustion. You still see the widening reading gap.
This is where many families begin asking an important question:
What does “progress” actually mean in an IEP — and does it meet the standard of meaningful educational benefit for dyslexia?
When we talk about IEP progress and dyslexia, the definition of progress matters. Not all growth is equal. And not all progress meets the legal standard under IDEA.
Let’s look at this specifically through a dyslexia lens.
The Legal Standard — Appropriate Progress Under IDEA
Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), schools must provide students with disabilities a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). In 2017, the Supreme Court clarified in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District that an IEP must be reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances.
That phrase — appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances — is especially important when we consider meaningful educational benefit for dyslexia.
Dyslexia is a neurobiological, language-based learning difference that affects phonological processing, decoding, spelling, and automatic word recognition. It is not caused by low intelligence, lack of effort, or insufficient exposure to books. It requires specialized instruction grounded in structured literacy.
So when evaluating appropriate progress under IDEA for a student with dyslexia, we must ask:
Is the intervention directly targeting the phonological and decoding weaknesses identified in the evaluation?
Is the structured literacy intensity sufficient for the severity of the dyslexia?
Is the provider highly trained in dyslexia intervention?
Is progress being measured in foundational reading skills — not just general reading benchmarks?
For students with dyslexia, minimal growth does not automatically equal meaningful educational benefit.
The Compensation Trap in Dyslexia Progress
One of the most common misunderstandings in IEP progress and dyslexia is confusing compensation with remediation.
Students with dyslexia are often bright, verbal, and highly adaptive. Over time, they may learn to:
Memorize large banks of sight words
Use context clues to guess unfamiliar words
Rely heavily on background knowledge
Become strategic test-takers
These compensatory strategies can improve performance on broad screening assessments such as MAP, iReady, STAR, or AIMSweb.
However, these screeners measure overall reading performance compared to peers. They do not measure whether structured literacy intervention is building automatic decoding pathways in the brain.
A student can show benchmark growth and still:
Decode inaccurately
Read slowly and laboriously
Spell inconsistently
Avoid independent reading
Break down when text becomes more complex
That is compensation. Not remediation.
A meaningful educational benefit for dyslexia requires foundational change—not just improved test performance.
What Meaningful Educational Benefit Looks Like in Dyslexia
For students with dyslexia, meaningful educational benefit must include measurable growth in:
Phonological awareness
Sound-symbol correspondence
Orthographic mapping
Decoding accuracy
Reading fluency with accuracy
Spelling pattern mastery
Written expression connected to decoding growth
If these underlying language systems are not strengthening, the dyslexia itself is not being remediated — even if grades or percentile ranks increase.
This is why structured literacy intensity is not optional. It is essential.
Structured Literacy Intensity and Dyslexia Outcomes
Research consistently supports explicit, systematic, cumulative structured literacy instruction for students with dyslexia. But curriculum alone is not enough. Dosage matters.
Students with moderate to severe dyslexia often require:
45–60 minute sessions
Three to five times per week
Extended duration over months or years
Delivery by a highly trained dyslexia specialist
If a student is receiving 30 minutes twice a week and making very slow growth, we cannot simply say the student is “making progress.”
We must ask whether the intervention intensity aligns with the severity of the disability.
If the reading gap remains the same year after year, parallel growth is not sufficient. Many students with dyslexia need accelerated growth to close the gap.
Meaningful educational benefit for dyslexia should change the student’s trajectory — not just maintain the status quo.
Why Provider Qualification Matters in Dyslexia Intervention
Another important factor in IEP progress and dyslexia is provider expertise.
Not all “Orton-Gillingham” instruction is equal. Not all reading intervention is structured literacy. And not all providers have the same depth of training.
There is a significant difference between:
A teacher who completed a short introductory workshop
A reading interventionist using pieces of a program
A Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT) or similarly credentialed dyslexia specialist trained in diagnostic teaching
A meaningful educational benefit requires ongoing data analysis, error-pattern evaluation, and lesson adjustments based on the student’s specific language profile.
If instruction is not responsive to student data, progress may plateau — even when a strong curriculum is being used.
The Gap Question in IEP Progress and Dyslexia
A powerful question for families is this:
Is the gap closing?
If a student began two grade levels behind in reading and remains two grade levels behind after a year of intervention, that may not represent meaningful educational benefit — even if some scores improved.
When evaluating appropriate progress under IDEA for dyslexia, consider:
Are decoding errors decreasing?
Is reading becoming more automatic and less effortful?
Is spelling reflecting true pattern knowledge?
Is writing improving as decoding improves?
Is reading stamina increasing?
If the answers are consistently no, the intervention plan may need adjustment in intensity, frequency, or provider training.
The Social-Emotional Impact of Insufficient Progress
Dyslexia is not just academic. It deeply affects a student’s confidence and emotional well-being.
When intervention lacks sufficient intensity or fails to remediate foundational skills, students often develop:
Anxiety about reading aloud
Task avoidance
School resistance
Negative self-talk
Learned helplessness
Meaningful educational benefit for dyslexia must include social-emotional progress alongside academic growth.
When reading becomes more automatic and predictable, anxiety often decreases. As decoding strengthens, confidence grows.
Academic change and emotional growth are closely connected.
Data That Truly Reflects Dyslexia Growth
To evaluate meaningful educational benefit for dyslexia, data must be granular and skill-specific.
Rather than relying solely on percentile ranks from broad benchmarks, teams should analyze:
Phoneme segmentation mastery
Sound-symbol acquisition
Pattern-based spelling growth
Controlled text fluency
Error analysis trends
Transfer of decoding skills into connected text
If the only evidence of progress is a broad reading score, it may not fully reflect whether the dyslexia is being effectively remediated.
When “Wait and See” Is Not Appropriate
Families often hear, “Let’s give it more time.”
Time alone does not remediate dyslexia.
If, after several months of consistent structured literacy instruction, measurable gains in foundational skills are not evident, the plan should be reviewed. IDEA requires that IEPs be responsive to data.
Appropriate progress under IDEA means adjusting instruction when it is not producing meaningful educational benefit.
Redefining Progress for Students with Dyslexia
For students with dyslexia, meaningful educational benefit should look like:
Stronger and more accurate decoding
Increased automaticity
Improved spelling tied to phonics patterns
Reduced cognitive load while reading
Greater independence
Growing confidence
Not just higher benchmark scores.
Not just better guessing strategies.
Not just coping.
Dyslexia is highly responsive to appropriate, structured literacy instruction delivered by qualified professionals.
When intervention aligns with the science of reading and the individual child’s profile, progress becomes transformative — not incremental.
And that is the level of progress students with dyslexia deserve.
The True Test: Reevaluation and Standard Score Growth
While weekly progress monitoring is important, the true test of meaningful educational benefit for dyslexia often comes at the time of a comprehensive reevaluation. Reevaluations generally occur every three years under IDEA and allow for an apples-to-apples comparison of standard scores in reading and spelling to the student’s original evaluation.
If a child has been receiving the appropriate style of structured literacy instruction at the correct intensity — instruction aligned with how their brain learns language — you should expect to see meaningful movement in the same standardized domains that initially qualified them for dyslexia services. Standard scores are designed to measure performance relative to same-age peers. In most cases, we are looking for growth that outpaces simple developmental expectations — often reflected in gains of approximately 8–12 standard score points over a three-year period when intervention has been intensive and well-aligned. Growth varies based on severity and profile, but the larger goal is clear: we are working to close the gap between achievement scores in reading and spelling and the student’s cognitive potential.
If standard scores remain largely unchanged after years of intervention, that raises important questions about instructional intensity, fidelity, and provider expertise. Meaningful educational benefit for dyslexia should be visible not only in daily work, but in standardized data over time.
References
Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District RE-1, 580 U.S. ___ (2017).
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (2004).
International Dyslexia Association. (2019). Structured Literacy: Effective instruction for students with dyslexia and related reading difficulties.
National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Shaywitz, S. (2020). Overcoming Dyslexia (2nd ed.). Alfred A. Knopf.
Moats, L. C. (2020). Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers (3rd ed.). Brookes Publishing.
Megan Pinchback, MBA, LDT, CALT is the owner and founder of Dyslexia On Demand.