It is often reduced to a standard list of reasonable adjustments, such as extra time, coloured backgrounds, assistive technology or written instructions. These can help, but they barely scratch the surface.
Effective dyslexia support needs to be individual, practical and rooted in how someone actually works. Dyslexia affects people differently, and every job places different demands on memory, organisation, communication, processing and focus. Good support starts with understanding what is genuinely making work harder.
Two people with dyslexia can have completely different needs. That is why asking, “What support do people with dyslexia normally get?” rarely leads to meaningful support.
A better starting point is: “What is making your work harder than it needs to be?”
For one person, this might be difficulty prioritising their workload. For someone else, it could be holding verbal information in their working memory, processing long or complex emails, keeping track of deadlines across several systems, worrying about making mistakes or spending far too much time checking work.
These challenges do not automatically tell us what the solution is. They tell us what we need to understand. This is where looking at the job itself becomes important. A strategy that works well in one workplace may be completely unrealistic in another.
For example, someone struggling with organisation might be advised to use a planner. That sounds helpful, but what if their job involves constant interruptions, rapidly changing priorities and information coming from several different systems?
Another planner may not solve the problem.
Instead, support might involve creating one clear place to capture tasks, agreeing priorities with a manager, using reminders, making instructions clearer or reducing unnecessary duplication.
This is why I find the Occupational Therapy approach so useful. Occupational Therapists look at the person, the task and the environment together. We are interested in what someone needs to do, what is making that harder, and what could change to make it more manageable.
Reasonable adjustments can make a significant difference, but they work best when they respond to an actual difficulty rather than being selected from a standard list.
This could include clearer deadlines, breaking larger tasks into stages, having access to a quieter space for focused work, using templates for regular documents, using speech-to-text or text-to-speech software, or receiving written confirmation of important verbal instructions.
The adjustment itself is only part of the picture.
Someone also needs to feel confident using it and have the opportunity to build it into their working routine. There is little benefit in providing assistive technology if someone has never been shown how to use it properly or does not feel comfortable using it at work.
One part of workplace support that can easily be missed is the amount of energy someone is using simply to keep up.
A dyslexic employee may appear to be coping well while putting in a huge amount of additional effort behind the scenes. They might arrive early, stay late, reread emails several times, avoid asking questions because they are worried about being judged, work through breaks or take unfinished work home.
From the outside, everything may appear fine because the work is getting done.
But support should not only ask, “Are you completing the work?”
It should also ask, “What is it costing you to complete the work?”
That question can tell us much more.
Sometimes relatively small changes can reduce that energy drain. Clearer expectations around workload, more consistent communication, protected time for focused work, fewer unnecessary interruptions or flexibility around where someone completes concentrated tasks can all make work more manageable.
The aim should not simply be to help someone produce the required output. It should also be to find ways of working that they can realistically sustain.
One part of workplace support that can easily be missed is the amount of energy someone is using simply to keep up.
A dyslexic employee may appear to be coping well while putting in a huge amount of additional effort behind the scenes. They might arrive early, stay late, reread emails several times, avoid asking questions because they are worried about being judged, work through breaks or take unfinished work home.
From the outside, everything may appear fine because the work is getting done.
But support should not only ask, “Are you completing the work?”
It should also ask, “What is it costing you to complete the work?”
That question can tell us much more.
Sometimes relatively small changes can reduce that energy drain. Clearer expectations around workload, more consistent communication, protected time for focused work, fewer unnecessary interruptions or flexibility around where someone completes concentrated tasks can all make work more manageable.
The aim should not simply be to help someone produce the required output. It should also be to find ways of working that they can realistically sustain.