But They’re Getting Good Instruction… Why Are They Still Struggling?

By Stacey Masliansky

In Part 1 of this series, I shared what I used to believe about dyslexia and what I didn’t know. In Part 2, I talked about what dyslexia can actually look like, especially when a student’s strengths make their word-reading and spelling difficulties harder to recognize.

There is another part of the current definition of dyslexia that deserves our attention: persistence.

The International Dyslexia Association’s current definition describes dyslexia as a specific learning disability characterized by difficulties in word reading and/or spelling that involve accuracy, speed, or both. It also says that these difficulties occur along a continuum of severity and persist even with instruction that is effective for the individual’s peers.

That last part is important, but it can easily be misunderstood.

What Does It Mean for Difficulties to Persist?

Children do not all learn to read and spell at the same pace. Some need more practice, additional explanations, or more time to develop a new skill. Those things alone are not evidence of dyslexia. The more important question is what happens over time and in response to instruction.

Is a student continuing to experience significant difficulty with word reading or spelling even though they are receiving effective instruction and appropriate opportunities to learn and practice?

To answer that question, we have to consider the instruction the student has received. If a child has not been explicitly taught how to work with sounds and letters, has had limited opportunities to practice, or is receiving inconsistent instruction, we can’t reasonably conclude that the difficulty is persistent.

We also need to look at progress. Not simply, Did they get it right today? But…Are they learning? Are they becoming more accurate? More automatic? Is the gap changing?

That is where the bigger picture becomes important.

Look at the Trajectory, Not Just the Snapshot

I think about the many parents who have approached me over the years after state assessment results are shared or parent-teacher conferences. Often, they are understandably focused on a single score, a snapshot of their child’s performance at one particular moment. But a single score doesn’t tell the whole story.

I think about a student I began working with when she was in first grade. Her mother had been concerned since before kindergarten because her daughter was having a surprisingly difficult time learning and remembering the alphabet. She shared those concerns with her daughter’s kindergarten teacher, who reassured her that, with time, she would get it.

But by the end of kindergarten, she was still struggling.

That summer, her mother sought tutoring, and I began working with her. It quickly became clear that she needed a much more structured and explicit approach to learning to read and spell. With systematic instruction, she began making gains in decoding and encoding. She also began to develop confidence.

But it took another three years before she was reading accurately and effortlessly at grade level. If we had looked only at the end point, we might have seen a child who remained behind her peers for years. But that wasn’t the whole story. She was learning. She was growing. Her skills were changing in response to instruction.

That experience reinforced for me how important it is to look at trajectory, not just a snapshot. A student who is still below grade level but making steady progress is in a different situation from a student whose difficulties remain largely unchanged despite effective instruction. Both students need support, but the information we gather should help us determine what each student needs next.

Persistence Doesn’t Mean Waiting

One of the most important things I have learned is that persistence is not about waiting a predetermined amount of time to see whether a child catches up.

The International Dyslexia Association’s explanation of the 2025 definition makes this clear: the concept of persistence is not an endorsement of a “wait to fail” approach.

In today’s schools, frameworks such as Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) are designed to provide increasingly targeted support while schools monitor student response. We don’t need to know exactly why a child is struggling before we provide appropriate support.

We can provide effective instruction, monitor progress, adjust our teaching, and continue gathering information at the same time.

When a student isn’t making the progress we expect, we need to look closely at what is happening with word reading and spelling. We can ask:

• How accurately is the student reading words?

• How automatic is their recognition of familiar words?

• What happens when they encounter an unfamiliar word?

• Do they use the letters and sounds, or do they guess?

• What does their spelling tell us?

• Are they making measurable progress with instruction?

Then we ask the most important question:

What does this student need next?

Sometimes the answer is more practice. Sometimes it is more explicit instruction, a different explanation, additional intensity, or a smaller instructional group. Sometimes the data suggest that a more comprehensive evaluation is needed.

The goal isn’t to rush to a label. The goal is to respond to what the student is showing us.

Don’t Wait for Certainty

This is one of the biggest changes in my own thinking over the years.

Earlier in my career, I viewed struggling as something we needed to observe for a while before we could really act on it. Now I see a struggling student differently.

If a child is consistently having difficulty learning to read or spell words, that difficulty is information.

We can support the student while we continue learning more about why they are struggling. We don’t have to choose between supporting a student now and figuring out what is going on.

Looking back on my own career, I wish I had understood this sooner. I wish I had known to look carefully at word reading and spelling. I wish I had understood that strong comprehension or oral language could coexist with significant word-level difficulties.

Most importantly, I wish I had understood that we don’t have to wait for certainty before we respond.

The goal is to use what we are learning about the student to determine what they need next.

Coming next: Part 4, “Now That We Know Better, What Do We Do?