Helping Adults Become Better Readers

For adults who have never received adequate reading instruction, or who received it but require a refresher as they pursue education or career advancement, adult literacy programs and assistive technologies offer genuine pathways to improvement. Adults with dyslexia face unique challenges — they may have accumulated decades of reading avoidance, anxiety around literacy tasks, and entrenched compensatory habits — but the underlying phonological deficit is still responsive to appropriate instruction at any age.

Adult Literacy Programs

Adults with significant reading difficulties can make substantial gains with structured literacy instruction. The same principles that apply to children — systematic phonics, phoneme awareness training, explicit instruction, regular practice — apply to adults, though the instructional context and pace must be adapted.

Several types of programs exist:

Adult Basic Education (ABE) programs: Publicly funded programs available in most communities through community colleges, libraries, and literacy organizations. Quality varies considerably. Adults seeking dyslexia-specific phonological instruction should ask specifically whether the program uses a structured literacy approach (phonics-based, sequential) rather than a whole-language or general literacy enrichment approach.

Volunteer literacy tutoring programs: Organizations such as ProLiteracy and local literacy councils train volunteer tutors to work one-on-one with adult learners. While the quality depends heavily on the individual tutor’s training, many programs use structured approaches.

Wilson Reading System for adults: The Wilson Reading System has an adult edition and is used in workplace literacy programs and correctional settings. Its systematic, explicit structure makes it appropriate for adults with phonological processing deficits.

The critical point is that adults with dyslexia should not be channeled primarily toward comprehension strategies and coping skills if their decoding is still weak. Addressing the phonological foundation — even in adulthood — produces more durable improvement than layering comprehension strategies on top of an unreliable decoding base.

Assistive Technology for Adults

For many adults with dyslexia, technology is the most practical path to managing reading-intensive work. Modern assistive technology is powerful, widely available, and increasingly seamlessly integrated into everyday devices.

Text-to-speech (TTS): Software that reads written text aloud, allowing the user to process content auditorially. Leading tools include:

• Natural Reader: A versatile TTS app that works with documents, web pages, and e-books
• Voice Dream Reader: A highly regarded TTS app for iOS and Android, with natural-sounding voices and good formatting support
• Speechify: A popular TTS tool with a clean interface, available on multiple platforms
• Built-in OS TTS: Both macOS and Windows have built-in text-to-speech capabilities that work with many applications

Speech-to-text: For writing, Dragon NaturallySpeaking (now Dragon Professional) allows users to dictate text into any application with high accuracy. This compensates for the spelling and fluency difficulties that often accompany dyslexia. Many dyslexic individuals who are highly articulate but struggle with written expression find dictation transformative.

Audiobooks: Access to books in audio format removes the reading bottleneck entirely for leisure reading and many informational purposes. Sources include:

• Audible: The largest commercial audiobook library
• Learning Ally: Specifically serves individuals with print disabilities; includes many educational texts not available commercially
• Bookshare: The world’s largest accessible book library, free for qualifying U.S. students and individuals with print disabilities

Managing Reading-Intensive Careers

Many dyslexic adults choose careers that play to their strengths — problem-solving, design, interpersonal work, creative domains — but even in those careers, reading demands can be significant. Strategies for managing a reading-intensive workload:

• Prioritize ruthlessly: Not everything that crosses your desk requires equal reading attention. Identify what must be read carefully and what can be skimmed or listened to.
• Use TTS for all long documents: Build text-to-speech into your workflow as a standard tool, not an emergency backup.
• Dictate responses: Use speech-to-text for emails, reports, and other written communications.
• Request accommodations: The ADA requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees with disabilities. Extended deadlines for reading-heavy assignments, access to audio formats of documents, and text-to-speech software are all potentially reasonable accommodations.
• Leverage oral communication: Dyslexic individuals often excel at the verbal and interpersonal aspects of their work. Prioritizing face-to-face communication, phone calls, and presentations over written exchanges can shift the balance of work toward strengths.

Based on “Overcoming Dyslexia” by Sally Shaywitz, M.D. (2020 edition)