The Dyslexia Paradox: How the DfE’s One-Size-Fits-All Approach Is Failing a Generation of Readers

Science is clear: brains learn to read best before seven.

During the early years, the brain is most plastic. It is forming neural connections that link speech, print, and meaning. By around age seven, this window of optimal phonological and orthographic learning begins to narrow. It is essential that teaching embraces linguistic and neurodiversity, and adequately supports children with speech and language processing differences.

The Dyslexia Paradox

The dyslexia paradox refers to the contradiction that dyslexia risk can be identified early, yet most children are not supported until they have already experienced three years of reading failure in KS1. They are taught through one-size-fits-all synthetic phonics programmes that are not suited to the neurodiverse classroom. The DfE claims that “A complete programme is one that provides all that is essential to teach SSP to children in the Reception and Key Stage 1 years of mainstream primary schools, up to or beyond the standards expected by the national curriculum, and provides sufficient support for them to become fluent readers” (DfE, 2023). Yet the Department is now introducing a new programme focused on fluency and comprehension, acknowledging indirectly that existing phonics provision has not produced the intended results. Synthetic phonics has been mandated in England since 2013, and since 2016 one in four children have remained unable to read and spell at minimum expected levels by the end of primary school.

Why the System Fails So Many

The DfE’s directive that all schools must implement validated Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programmes has created a standardised model that assumes all children learn to read in the same way. Programme developers are required to meet prescriptive criteria and demonstrate fidelity to a fixed, step-by-step sequence of instruction. While this ensures consistency in delivery, it overlooks the well-established evidence that children differ widely in how they process, retain, and generalise phoneme–grapheme correspondences.

Explicit phonics instruction is essential in helping children recognise the relationship between speech and print and to establish the alphabetic principle. However, it is only the beginning of the learning process. Once the principle is grasped, children must move into a self-teaching phase in which they learn new spelling–sound relationships implicitly through reading experience and exposure to print. The DfE model does not recognise this developmental transition, instead requiring all children to continue through the same sequence of explicit instruction for two full years, regardless of readiness or progress.

This rigid approach prevents some children from progressing to independent word learning, while offering insufficient support for those who need additional linguistic scaffolding to succeed. For many learners, particularly those with speech, language, and communication needs or neurodivergent profiles, this structure constrains rather than enables literacy development. It confuses uniformity with equity.

Research in cognitive neuroscience and reading development shows that while explicit instruction is helpful for all children and crucial for some (Brady, 2011; Hattie, 2009; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000; Snow & Juel, 2005; Tunmer & Arrow, 2013), there are too many letter–sound correspondences in English orthography to be learned solely through direct teaching, estimated to be between 300 and 400 (see SSP Spelling Clouds). The goal of phonics should therefore be to establish transferable understanding.

By promoting fidelity to uniform delivery rather than adaptive practice, the DfE framework reinforces a one-size-fits-all model that fails to account for how readers actually learn. It creates conditions in which one in four children do not reach the self-teaching phase and one in five remain unable to blend or segment even the earliest taught words. The consequence is predictable: despite a decade of mandated synthetic phonics, the proportion of children leaving primary school unable to read and spell at expected levels has not improved.

Those training with us can see the signs as they know how to screen children, but the current Department for Education model has created the conditions in which at least one in five children fall behind before help is provided. The support that follows is then not even sufficient for every child to learn to read by age eleven, let alone the crucial age of seven.

Research in cognitive neuroscience and reading development (Hulme & Snowling, 2016; Dehaene, 2009; Seidenberg, 2017) shows that children who do not reach the self-teaching phase by seven are much less likely to develop fluent reading and spelling skills. Their brains have not yet automated the mapping between speech sounds, graphemes, and meaning, which is why catching up later becomes so difficult.

Acting Before the Paradox Takes Hold

Early screening and phonemic awareness support within the 10 Day Speech Sound Play Plan, plus targeted support such as the Speedie Readies intervention, help children build these connections while the brain is still highly adaptable. Screening and supporting children from Reception ensures that we act before the dyslexia paradox takes hold. It also means that we do not hold children back.

Preventing the dyslexia paradox requires a fundamental shift in how early literacy is approached in England. It means recognising that children do not all learn in the same way, and that early differences in speech, language, and sound awareness are not signs of deficit, but indicators that instruction must be responsive and inclusive.

The current DfE framework has prioritised programme fidelity over child diversity. To change outcomes, we must prioritise early identification, linguistic understanding, and flexible teaching that adapts to each child’s developmental profile.

Speedie Readies provides a model for this change. It bridges the gap between explicit phonics instruction and the self-teaching phase by making speech–print relationships visible to all learners. When children can see and hear how sounds map to letters and words, they can begin to read, spell, and self-correct independently.

If every Reception and KS1 classroom incorporated screening through the 10 Day Speech Sound Play Plan and daily Speedie Readies sessions for those at risk, the dyslexia paradox could be prevented rather than managed. The science is clear, the tools now exist, and the opportunity to act early has never been greater.