Dr. Benjamin N. Powers, executive director of The Southport School, makes a crucial distinction in his recent commentary: there is a world of difference between making learning accessible and simply making it easier. This insight should reshape how educators approach students with dyslexia. The instinct to simplify—shortening texts, reducing material, lowering question complexity—may feel compassionate, but it often backfires by allowing a reading disability to unnecessarily limit access to ideas students are perfectly capable of understanding.
The real work begins with diagnosis, not accommodation. Two seventh-grade students with nearly identical reading comprehension scores may struggle for entirely different reasons. One might be guessing at longer words and needs systematic instruction in advanced decoding skills and morphology. The other might read accurately but slowly, struggling to hold ideas in mind across longer texts and needing support in text chunking and monitoring for understanding. Without identifying the specific barrier, educators risk responding to all struggling readers the same way, potentially mistaking difficulty accessing material for an inability to understand it. This distinction is not academic—it determines whether a student receives the targeted help they actually need.
As students progress through school, the stakes of this distinction grow higher. From roughly fourth grade onward, students are expected to use reading to learn across subjects, just as texts become more complex. When word recognition requires significant effort, cognitive resources are diverted from meaning-making. The answer is not easier texts. It is explicit, intensive reading instruction that grows with the student—ensuring that a middle schooler receiving foundational reading skills instruction doesn't feel relegated back to elementary school, while still addressing the real need.
The Southport School's results demonstrate what becomes possible when instruction is truly tailored. In their most recent graduating cohort, students averaged 1.9 years of reading comprehension growth per year of enrollment. At entry, 59 percent scored in the low-average range or below in reading comprehension. By graduation, 89 percent scored in the average range or above. These gains didn't come from lowering expectations or simplifying work. They came from understanding each student's specific needs and providing sufficiently intensive instruction to address them.
Perhaps most importantly, students themselves need to understand this distinction. Years of struggle can reshape how students see themselves, sometimes leading to avoidance and reduced practice. By middle school, some conclude they cannot learn, rather than recognizing the specific skills they haven't yet developed. Educators have a responsibility to help students develop accurate self-understanding—knowing where they struggle and why, recognizing their strengths, and learning to advocate for appropriate support. That support means challenge, not retreat.