About Dyslexia Steps
We build a free dyslexia screening test and a short daily reading program for children, grounded in published research and honest about its limits.
Updated
Short answer
Who makes Dyslexia Steps and what does it offer?
Dyslexia Steps is made by a small team building evidence-based reading practice. It offers a free online dyslexia screening test for children aged 5 to 12, a separate free check for adults, free phonics word lists and tools, and a paid daily reading-games program for children built on systematic phonics and spaced review. It is a screening and practice service; it does not diagnose dyslexia.
- The screening test runs in the browser and no audio is recorded.
- Child profiles are created by a parent and need no email address.
- Every factual claim on the site is linked to a published source.
- Every language pack, for the test and the program, is a draft under specialist review.
Who is behind Dyslexia Steps
Dyslexia Steps is built by a small team that makes learning software for children who find reading or numbers harder than their classmates do. We are not a clinic, and we do not diagnose anyone. What we try to do is make two things easy for parents: finding out quickly whether a child shows signs worth following up, and giving that child a short, useful bit of practice every day.
Dyslexia is common. A meta-analysis of prevalence studies put it at about 7% of primary school children, which means a couple of children in a typical class. Many parents start searching late at night after a difficult homework session, and much of what they find online is either alarming or selling something that does not work. We wanted a site that answers plainly and shows its sources.
Our sister site, dyscalculia.io, does the same for children who struggle with numbers. Reading and math difficulties occur together more often than chance would predict, so some families use both.1,2
Dyslexia Steps principles
Three principles decide what goes into the product and onto these pages.3,4,5,6,7
Evidence first, with sources
Every factual claim on the site sits next to the published study it comes from, listed under each section. The program is built on the approaches with the strongest research behind them: phonological awareness, systematic phonics and decoding, with spaced review. If we cannot point to a source, we do not make the claim.
Honest about what does not work
Special dyslexia fonts, colored overlays and branded multisensory programs are widely sold. The research on them is disappointing: no benefit from dyslexia fonts in controlled studies, no good evidence for overlays in a systematic review, and no significant effect for Orton-Gillingham-branded programs in a meta-analysis. We say so, even where it would be easier to sell. Our visual and memory games are described as warm-ups, because that is what the evidence supports.
Private by design
The screening test runs entirely in your browser and needs no account; the answers stay on your device unless you choose to save them. No audio is ever recorded: in the color-naming game your child speaks and a parent presses the timer. Child profiles are created by a parent inside the parent's account and need no email address. There are no ads in the program.
How the Dyslexia Steps test was designed
Research on dyslexia points to a core difficulty with the sound structure of language, and to a handful of early skills that predict how easily a child learns to read. The children's test has one short game for each: hearing sounds in words, knowing letter sounds, decoding made-up words, rapid color naming, telling look-alike letters apart, and remembering spoken sequences. The first four carry most of the weight; the last two add context.
Every instruction is spoken, so children who cannot read yet can take part. The result is a profile of strengths and a focus skill, compared with rough expectations for the child's age. Because we do not have clinical norms, the result never claims to say how far behind a child is. It says plainly when several signs are present and suggests talking to the school about a full assessment by a qualified professional.
The adult check follows a different design, because many adults with dyslexia read accurately but slowly. It combines reading-history questions, an approach used in research on adults, with a decoding task and a naming task.8,9,10,11,12
How the Dyslexia Steps reading program works
The program is a set of short reading games for children aged 5 to 12, grouped into seven worlds. The core worlds practice sounds, letter-sound links, blending, decoding and spelling. The others add reading fluency and short stories written for each stage, which the child reads, answers questions about and reads again, plus visual and memory warm-ups. Each day a planner builds a session of about 10 minutes that starts from the focus skill in the test result.
Every letter, word and made-up word a child practices is tracked. Items they find hard come back after a day, then after longer and longer gaps, because spaced practice is remembered better than cramming. Difficulty adjusts within each level: a run of correct answers makes it harder, mistakes make it easier.
Spelling systems differ a great deal between languages. Children learning to read English decode far fewer words after their first year than children learning more regular spellings, so each language gets its own pack of sounds, word lists, made-up words and recordings rather than a translation. There are packs for all six site languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch and Brazilian Portuguese.
The first 5 levels of every world are free with an account. The full program costs $9.99 a month or $39.99 a year and covers several child profiles.3,13,14,15
Dyslexia Steps expert review
Every language pack, for both the test and the program, is a draft built from published teaching sequences and research. A reading specialist who works in that language is checking its letter-sound mappings, teaching order, word lists and audio recordings. A wrong sound, such as an f where a th should be, would undermine the whole point of the program, so this check is not optional.
That specialist review is in progress for every language. We will name the reviewers on this page once the reviews are complete, and we will update the packs with any corrections they make. Until then, we welcome corrections from teachers and specialists at the address below.
Contact the Dyslexia Steps team
You can reach us at [email protected]. We read every message, and we especially want to hear from you if something on the site is wrong, unclear or out of date, or if a game did not work as expected for your child.
We cannot give individual advice about whether a child has dyslexia. For that, please speak to your child's school or a qualified assessor. If you are not sure where to start, the free dyslexia test and our guide to what dyslexia is are good first steps.
