Colorful leaves. Autumn celebrations. Anticipation of holidays! The arrival of November brings excitement to many, with anticipation of Thanksgiving, and holiday plans!
For us, at New Agenda, we too are excited with the blast of fall colors and seeing the joy in communities with the preparation of the holidays!
At the same time, we have been busy partnering with parents and professionals working to support students with both ADHD and Dyslexia.
Understanding Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a learning difference that affects how the brain processes written language. Children and adults with dyslexia often find it hard to read words accurately and fluently and may struggle with spelling and sounding out (decoding) unfamiliar words.
These challenges come from differences in the way the brain processes language, including how it connects letters and sounds — a skill known as phonological processing. In typical readers, areas on the left side of the brain work together to connect sounds to letters and recognize words quickly. In readers with dyslexia, these areas may be less efficiently connected, so the brain often recruits other regions — including areas on the right side and those involved in attention and problem-solving — to support reading.
Dyslexia and Executive Function Skills
Children with dyslexia often also experience difficulties with executive function skills—such as working memory, attention, organization, and self-monitoring—because the brain regions that support reading also overlap with those that manage executive control. Neuroimaging studies show that areas like the:
- prefrontal cortex,
- anterior cingulate cortex, and
- parietal regions
are active in both reading and executive functioning. When these networks are under-connected or less efficiently activated, as is common in dyslexia, challenges can extend beyond decoding words to include planning, focusing, and managing complex learning tasks.
Based on overlapping areas of the brain for reading and executive function skills, specific challenges may present with:
- Working memory overload: Students with weak working memory may struggle to hold phonological segments, blending steps, decodable units, or instructions while also applying decoding rules, causing fatigue or breakdown.
- Inhibition and distraction: Difficulty inhibiting irrelevant thoughts or external distractions may lead to lapses during reading or instruction, reducing consistency of focus and encoding.
- Cognitive flexibility / shifting: When intervention requires shifting between phonological processing, orthographic mapping, morphological awareness, and comprehension strategies, struggling flexibility can hinder smooth transitions and integration.
- Planning and metacognitive monitoring: If a student is unable to plan practice, self-monitor errors, or strategically reexamine mistakes, they may be less able to generalize or self-correct.
- Sustained attention / vigilance: Some students may lose focus over extended sessions, leading to less efficient practice or inconsistent gains.
- Time management and organization: Difficulties in managing assignments, tracking practice schedules, balancing reading with other tasks, or chunking intervention into manageable units can reduce quantity or quality of practice.
Empirically, research has indeed documented that children with dyslexia often exhibit executive deficits (e.g., in shifting, working memory, inhibition) compared with typical readers.
- Some studies link poorer planning/organization to lower reading comprehension, even controlling for decoding deficits, suggesting that executive dysfunction contributes to comprehension beyond basic word reading.
- Moreover, a 2022 meta-analysis found that working memory and inhibition frequently influence reading skills in children with dyslexia (often comorbid with ADHD), and that executive dysfunction specifically (even without ADHD) is associated with greater reading difficulty in dyslexic students.
- Intervention studies that incorporate executive-function–based strategies show that improved connectivity in EF networks (e.g. frontoparietal, sensory-EF coupling) correlates with improved reading outcomes in children with dyslexia.
Supporting Your Child’s Reading and Executive Function Skills at Home
Embedding strategies and supports to guide executive function skills is imperative for students with dyslexia. At New Agenda, many parents ask us how they can support their child with dyslexia, particularly when concerns of Executive Dysfunction are present. We recommend the following considerations:
1. Get a full picture of your child’s needs.
Ask for assessments or feedback that look at both reading skills and executive function abilities (like memory, focus, organization, and planning). Knowing which areas are hardest helps you target support.
2. Use visual and practical supports.
Create checklists, use sticky notes, highlight key steps, or set visual reminders to help your child stay organized while reading or doing homework. Gradually reduce these supports as your child gains confidence.
Many of New Agenda’s coaches help parents with developing and setting up visual supports given weaknesses with Working Memory. Practicing sequences with visual supports, and referencing visual supports in multi-faceted tasks, allows the brain to exercise and grow in focused effort, sequential thought, and integrated tasks.
3. Model “thinking out loud.”
Show your child how you plan, problem-solve, or talk yourself through a challenge (“Okay, first I’ll read the question, then I’ll look for clues in the paragraph…”). Encourage your child to try this kind of self-talk too.
4. Practice executive function through household routines.
Give your child age-appropriate responsibilities—like setting the table, packing their backpack, managing a weekly chore, or helping plan a family meal. These real-life tasks build planning, sequencing, and follow-through.
5. Play and practice executive function skills in fun ways.
Play memory or strategy games, do puzzles, or have your child follow multi-step directions during cooking or crafts. These activities strengthen working memory, attention, and flexible thinking—skills that also support reading.Some examples our Executive Function Coaches like to embed brief working memory games in their sessions, including:
- Digit span / backward digit recall games: Start simpler and gradually increase length; have students repeat digits forward or backward (like memory span games).
- Memory card games / matching games: Traditional “concentration” memory cards, but with added distractors or requiring simultaneous updating.
- Simon® / sequence memory “Simon says” type games: Where sequences of colors, sounds, or segments must be tracked and repeated.
- Dual-task games: For example, having students hold a sequence of numbers while solving another simple task (e.g. mental arithmetic, word puzzles) simultaneously.
- Cognitive span games / listening span tasks: Where students listen to sentences and recall the final word or one element from each sentence, such as counting the words in a sentence.
- Visual–spatial memory games: For example, recall the spatial positions of objects on a grid, or “look–cover–write–check” —look at the pictures on a board, cover the pictures, write what each picture is and the location, and check for accuracy.
- “Train of thought” chain games: For example, student A says “apple,” student B says “apple–banana,” student C says “apple–banana–cherry,” and so on. Each must hold the full chain before adding one new item.
6. Watch for signs of fatigue or frustration.
Notice when supports or tasks feel too hard or too easy. Adjust gently—shorten tasks, add breaks, or remove scaffolds little by little as your child’s stamina and skills improve.
7. Build independence and confidence.
Praise effort and progress (“You remembered to check your list before reading—great job!”). Step back gradually as your child takes more ownership of their routines and learning.
Focusing on research-based strategies for reading intervention is critical for students with dyslexia. Often, however, executive function skills development, and the role of EF skills in reading development, are overlooked. It is important that parents understand the importance of both areas for development, guide EF skill development at home, and work with your child’s interventionist to ensure that EF supports and skills are integrated into their intervention plan.
Want to learn more about Executive Function Coaching? Check out our website newagendacoaching.com
