Future of dyslexia screening: 4 key takeaways for educators

When you think about screening students for characteristics of dyslexia, what comes to mind? For many educators and leaders, the answer is likely state screening requirements, multiple reading assessments, and the challenge of making sense of the data to help inform instruction.

You may also find yourself thinking about the differences between dyslexia screening and universal screening for reading within an MTSS framework. While the assessments are often identical, with the addition of assessments like rapid automatic naming (RAN) for dyslexia screening, the intent is the same in each case: To identify students who need more support.

However, there is growing evidence that we need to rethink how we conduct dyslexia screening going forward. This can be seen most prominently in the revised definition of dyslexia published in 2025 by the International Dyslexia Association. This new definition describes dyslexia as a complex, developmental, language-based learning disability involving difficulties with word reading and/or spelling.

Key to this new definition is the acknowledgement of the importance of early oral language weaknesses and how they often foreshadow later literacy challenges.

Last year, Renaissance brought together a panel of four leading dyslexia experts to advise us on the latest research and to inform the creation of new Renaissance assessment content. As part of this process, the experts authored a new whitepaper titled Bringing Dyslexia Screening Into the Future. The four experts are:

• Dr. Matthew K. Burns, University of Florida
• Dr. Tim Odegard, Middle Tennessee State University
• Dr. Rachel Brown-Chidsey, University of Alaska
• Dr. Tiffany P. Hogan, MGH Institute of Health Professions

The new whitepaper is worth downloading and reviewing in its entirety. In this blog, I’ll share four key takeaways from the whitepaper and discuss the importance of viewing dyslexia screening through a developmental lens in every school and district.

What do we mean by “developmentally informed” dyslexia screening?

The first key takeaway is that students should be screened on the skills that matter most at their current point in literacy development.

This may sound obvious, but it represents an important shift. Many dyslexia screening practices focus heavily on early phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and decoding skills. These skills are essential, but they are not the whole picture.

Dyslexia is language-based, complex, and developmental. This means that risk may look different in preschool than it does in grade 1, and different again in grades 4 or 5. A preschool student is not expected to read words, so screening should focus on early indicators, including:

• Oral language
• Phonological awareness
• Rapid automatic naming
• Print knowledge

By grade 2 and beyond, students are expected to read connected text and spell increasingly complex words, so screening should shift to include oral passage reading, spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension-related language skills.

When screening is aligned to students’ development, it becomes more useful. It helps educators identify which students may need additional support now, while also recognizing that some students’ reading difficulties may not become visible until later grades as literacy demands increase.

Dyslexia screening should be the gateway to support

The second key takeaway is that dyslexia screening is not a diagnosis. Instead, screening is intended to identify students who may require additional support in learning to read. It is not designed to diagnose dyslexia or determine eligibility for services.

Screening is most powerful when it is connected to a broader system of support, such as MTSS, where it allows educators to answer practical questions:

• Which students may need additional help or more intensive intervention?
• Which skills should we monitor more closely?
• When might additional assessment be needed to better understand a student’s strengths and needs?

Consider a grade 1 student who struggles with phoneme segmenting, letter sounds, and word reading on a screener. These results do not diagnose dyslexia. But they do tell educators something important: This student likely needs more explicit instruction and practice with phonological awareness, sound-symbol connections, and word-level reading.

The value of screening comes from what happens next. The data should help educators make instructional decisions, not simply generate a list of students who need additional support.

Why oral language belongs in dyslexia screening

When many people think about dyslexia, they often think about phonics, spelling, or word reading. These are central to dyslexia, but they are not the only skills that matter.

Oral language includes skills such as vocabulary, grammar, sentence understanding, and the ability to process and use spoken language. These skills provide the foundation for later reading and spelling. This is why screening in preschool and early kindergarten should include oral language alongside other emergent literacy skills.

Early oral language weaknesses often occur prior to formal schooling and foreshadow later reading and spelling difficulties. This is especially important because some students’ language weaknesses may not appear in print-based tasks alone. Other students may perform adequately on simple decoding tasks early on but struggle later when they encounter longer words, more complex sentence structures, and texts that require stronger vocabulary and comprehension.

If we do not look at language, we may miss important information. This is the third key takeaway.

The role of oral language is also important when screening multilingual learners. Dyslexia is not caused by bilingualism or multilingualism. Multilingual learners can have dyslexia, but schools must be careful to distinguish between typical second-language development and disability-related reading difficulty. For this reason, oral language and vocabulary are especially important constructs to consider in English-language screening.

Central to this is to remember that for multilingual learners, it does not mean lowering expectations. It means using better information.

Screening should be efficient, practical, and developmentally aligned

When schools are worried about missing students who may have dyslexia, it can be tempting to add assessments to the testing schedule. More screeners. More subtests. More assessment windows.

More testing does not automatically lead to better decisions, however.

The fourth takeaway is that dyslexia screening should use as few measures as necessary to support accurate decisions. Further, schools should always weigh classification accuracy against the time, training, cost, and disruption associated with screening systems.

Every minute spent assessing is a minute not spent teaching. Screening must be worth the time it takes. A useful screener should do three things well:

1. Align with what research tells us about reading development.
2. Provide useful information for educators.
3. Connect to instruction and intervention.

When considering a developmental progression of screening constructs from preschool through grade 6, here are some points to ponder, drawn from the new whitepaper:

• In preschool, students are not yet expected to read words and understand books read aloud, so screening should emphasize oral language, phonological awareness, rapid automatic naming, and early print knowledge.

• In kindergarten and grade 1, screening should capture growth in phonological awareness, letter knowledge, sound-symbol learning, and beginning word reading, while still measuring oral language.

• By grade 2, students are expected to read more complex words and connected text. At this point, screening should shift toward oral passage reading, spelling, and more advanced language skills. 

• In grades 3–6, screening should continue to reflect broader literacy demands, including fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension-related language abilities.

While these recommendations still require validation, the takeaway is that screening should change as students’ literacy demands change.

How to ensure effective dyslexia screening this year

Dyslexia screening should be part of a prevention-oriented literacy system that helps educators identify risk early, respond with effective instruction, and monitor whether students are making progress.

For schools and districts, the practical question is not simply, “Are we screening students for characteristics of dyslexia?” It is, “Are we screening students for characteristics of dyslexia in ways that help us make better instructional decisions?”

That question can guide important conversations for instructional teams:

1. Are we measuring the skills that matter most at each grade level?
2. Are we including oral language as part of our understanding of risk?
3. Are we using screening data to guide reading instruction and intervention?
4. Are we considering the needs of multilingual learners?
5. Are we avoiding unnecessary testing so educators have more time for teaching?

When dyslexia screening is grounded in research and connected to practice, it becomes much more than an assessment event. It becomes a tool for seeing students more clearly and supporting them more effectively on the journey to reading proficiently.

I invite you to download the full whitepaper for the authors’ complete recommendations, research synthesis, and recommended grade-level screening constructs. You can also watch the companion webinar—presented by the authors and hosted by Education Week—for a deeper dive into key points.