Closing Decoding Gaps for Students With Dyslexia: How the Right Instruction Changes Everything

Daniela Feldhausen
Feb 8
5 min read

How Can I Help My Child Or Teen Close Decoding Gaps Caused by Dyslexia?

If your child or teen has dyslexia, chances are you have heard phrases like “decoding gap,” “below grade level,” or “needs more time.” What those phrases often fail to explain is why reading still feels so hard, even after years of school, tutoring, or extra support. Decoding gaps are not about effort or intelligence. They are about missing foundational skills that were never fully taught or never fully clicked.

The good news is that decoding gaps can be closed, often much faster than parents expect, when instruction targets the right skills in the right way.

In This Post

What Decoding Gaps Really Mean for Dyslexic Students
Why Decoding Gaps Do Not Close on Their Own
What Actually Works to Close Decoding Gaps
How High-Intensity, 1-on-1 Instruction Accelerates Progress

What Decoding Gaps Really Mean for Dyslexic Students

Decoding is the ability to look at written words and accurately translate letters and letter patterns into sounds, then blend those sounds together to read words. For students with dyslexia, this process is often slow, effortful, or unreliable.

A decoding gap forms when a child or teen has not fully mastered foundational skills like:

Phonological awareness, including understanding that words are made up of individual sounds and that sounds are blended together to form words
Phonics, knowing how letters and letter combinations map to those sounds and vice versa
Morphology and spelling rules that support accurate reading and spelling

Many students with dyslexia learn to compensate. They guess based on context, memorize words, or rely heavily on pictures and prior knowledge. These strategies can mask decoding gaps in early grades, especially for bright students with strong vocabularies. But as reading demands increase, usually around third grade or later, those gaps become more difficult to hide.

That is often when parents notice homework battles, reading avoidance, plummeting confidence, or grades that no longer reflect their child or teen’s true ability.

Why Decoding Gaps Do Not Close on Their Own

One of the most common misconceptions about dyslexia is that students will “grow out of it” with more reading practice. Unfortunately, practice alone does not fix decoding gaps.

If a student does not fully understand how our reading and writing system work, more reading and writing simply reinforces inefficient strategies. A child or teen may read the same words incorrectly again and again, or memorize words without truly understanding how they are built. Over time, this leads to frustration and fatigue, not fluency.

Decoding gaps also tend to widen as students get older. Academic texts become more complex, vocabulary grows longer and more abstract, and reading speed matters more. Without explicit instruction that fills in missing skills, students with dyslexia often fall further behind, even in excellent schools.

What Actually Works to Close Decoding Gaps

Closing decoding gaps requires instruction that is systematic, explicit, and based on how the brain learns to read. For students with dyslexia, that means addressing two critical areas together.

First, most students with dyslexia need direct work on phonological skills. This includes learning to identify, segment, blend, and manipulate sounds in words. When phonological skills are weak, phonics instruction does not stick. Programs like Kilpatrick and Heggerty are designed to strengthen this foundation and help students truly understand how spoken language maps to written language.

Second, students need structured instruction in phonics, fluency, morphology and spelling that makes the rules of reading and spelling clear. Approaches grounded in Orton-Gillingham teach phonics patterns, fluency, morphology and spelling in a logical, cumulative way. Students learn not just what a pattern is, but when and why it is used. This clarity is especially important for dyslexic learners, who benefit from explicit explanations rather than discovery-based learning.

When these two components are combined, students begin to decode words more accurately and efficiently. Reading becomes less of a guessing game and more of a predictable system they can rely on.

Why Intensity and Personalization Matter

Even the best instruction will not close decoding gaps if it is delivered too quickly or too slowly. Regular classroom instruction is generally not enough for kids with dyslexia, and many school-based interventions meet once or twice per week for short small-group instruction. While that support can help students make progress, it rarely helps them catch up.

Students with dyslexia need high-intensity instruction, typically multiple sessions per week, to build momentum and reinforce new skills. Frequent practice allows the brain to rewire more efficiently and helps students experience success sooner.

Equally important is personalization. No two students have the exact same decoding gaps. Some struggle more with phonological awareness, others with specific phonics patterns, syllable types, or spelling rules. Effective instruction begins with careful assessment and then targets only the skills a child or teen actually needs to learn.

This is where 1-on-1 tutoring makes a significant difference. Individual sessions allow the tutor to adjust pacing, revisit skills as needed, and move quickly through concepts the student already understands. Good tutors monitor progress and review and re-teach skills as needed.

What Closing the Gap Really Looks Like

When decoding gaps start to close, parents often notice changes beyond reading scores. A child or teen who once avoided books may begin to read more willingly. Homework takes less time. Confidence improves. Students stop seeing themselves as “bad readers” and start to trust their ability to figure out unfamiliar words.

Importantly, closing decoding gaps does not mean endless tutoring. With the right approach, instruction is focused and goal-driven. The objective is not to keep students in tutoring indefinitely, but to help them catch up, graduate from support, and move forward as independent readers.

A Faster, Clearer Path Forward

If your child or teen has dyslexia and is struggling with decoding, the most important step is to focus on instruction that targets root causes, not symptoms. Decoding gaps are not permanent. They are skill gaps, and skills can be taught.

With evidence-based methods, high-intensity sessions, and personalized instruction, students with dyslexia can make meaningful progress in months, not years. Reading does not have to remain a daily struggle. With the right support, it can finally start to make sense.

Why Families Choose Kids Up Reading Tutors

What Sets Kids Up Reading Tutors Apart?

Evidence-based instruction with Orton-Gillingham+
- Based on the Science of Reading
- Data-driven systematic, explicit instruction
- For all learners, with or without dyslexia/dysgraphia

Kids & teens get caught up ASAP
- Customized, 1-on-1 sessions with a dedicated tutor
- High-intensity tutoring (2-5x/week) via Zoom
- Focused, with an end in sight (not endless tutoring & investment)

Flexible scheduling
- 45/60 minute sessions
- Daytime/evenings/weekends/summer
- Team of tutors; switch tutors if needed for schedule changes