By Daniela Feldhausen, J.D., M.S. Special Education, Founder of Kids Up Reading Tutors
If your child is struggling to read, you’ve probably asked yourself this question more than once: should you get them tested for dyslexia?
It’s one of the most common questions parents bring to us at Kids Up Reading Tutors, and there’s no single answer that fits every family. A comprehensive evaluation can offer real clarity and open doors to support that your child couldn’t otherwise access. Here’s how to think through when testing makes sense, and what happens to that evaluation once tutoring begins.
How Testing and Tutoring Work Together
A good evaluation is one of the most valuable tools available for understanding why a child is struggling. It can pinpoint specific weaknesses in phonological processing, memory, attention, or language, and help rule other conditions in or out.
At the same time, it helps to know that skill-based reading tutoring doesn’t strictly require a diagnosis to begin. Reading intervention can start as soon as a skill gap is identified, whether that happens before, during, or after a formal evaluation. Many families start tutoring right away to make progress while they pursue testing for one of the reasons below.
7 Good Reasons to Get Your Child Tested for Dyslexia
- Understanding how your child learns best. A good evaluation reveals a child’s specific strengths and challenges. That information will help everyone who supports your child, including teachers and tutors, play to your child’s strengths.
- Accommodations at school while reading is being remediated. Many schools require documentation before granting accommodations like extended time, audiobooks, or a lighter reading load.
- An IEP and special education services. A formal evaluation is usually the first step toward qualifying for an IEP. One caveat: schools generally aren’t equipped to teach a dyslexic child to become a fluent reader. Special ed services help with IEP goals, but most students still need outside, one-on-one dyslexia tutoring to truly catch up.
- More going on than just reading. If you’re also seeing signs of inattention, executive function struggles, behavior challenges or other concerns, a comprehensive evaluation looks at the whole picture. Dyslexia and ADHD often overlap, for example, and understanding both helps you support each one.
- You know something’s going on, but you’re not sure what. A full evaluation can name what you’ve been noticing and point you toward the support your child needs.
- SAT or ACT accommodations for an older child. Extended time on college entrance exams usually requires documentation on file well before test day.
- Slower than expected progress in tutoring. If your child has had consistent, high-quality tutoring for months without much progress, testing can help identify what’s being missed, sometimes revealing another area that needs its own support alongside high-dosage tutoring.
What Happens to the Assessment Once Tutoring Starts
A good tutor uses an evaluation’s findings to shape their plan. For example, the report might show that your student has slow rapid naming skills (how quickly a child names familiar things like colors or letters). Kids with slow naming speeds tend to need longer to sound out new words, so one of the goals of tutoring might be to build a large bank of words your child can read without having to sound them out.
Here’s what surprises some parents: even with a full psychoeducational assessment in hand, a good tutor will still need to do some additional testing with your child. A psychologist’s report might show weak phonological skills overall, but it won’t spell out exactly which skills a child has mastered and which they still need to learn. Tutors need that level of detail in order to plan your student’s lessons, so a skilled tutor will run their own screeners before building a plan, even after a formal evaluation. The tutor’s testing is much quicker and less expensive than a psychoeducational assessment.
Think of it this way: the psychological assessment tells you the why. The tutor’s own screening tells you exactly what to teach next.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my child need a diagnosis before starting tutoring?
Not necessarily. Skill-based tutoring can begin as soon as a gap is identified. That said, if you’re pursuing school accommodations, an IEP, or standardized test accommodations, you’ll want documentation from a formal evaluation on file.
What’s the difference between a school evaluation and a private one?
School evaluations are free and can qualify a child for an IEP or 504 plan, but they can take months to schedule and are sometimes narrower in scope. Private evaluations cost more but are usually faster and can dig deeper into co-occurring concerns like attention or executive function.
Will the assessment tell my child’s tutor exactly what to teach?
Not entirely. It points tutors toward the right general area, like phonological skills or phonics, but a good tutor still needs their own screeners to know precisely which skills a child has and which they still need to learn.
The Bottom Line
Testing for dyslexia can offer real clarity, open doors to accommodations, and reveal exactly how your child learns best. For families pursuing an IEP, standardized test accommodations, or a fuller picture of what else might be going on, it’s often the right first step. For others, whose main goal is simply to get their child reading and spelling better, testing may not be strictly necessary, and the most useful next step is starting the right kind of reading instruction directly. Either way, your child doesn’t have to stay stuck. With the right support, kids who struggle with reading can and do become confident, capable readers.
Metropolitan Psychological Services, PLLC offers Psychological Assessments for dyslexia. Contact us for a free consultation.
About the Author
Daniela Feldhausen is the founder of Kids Up Reading Tutors. A former attorney with a master’s degree in special education, she has extensive training in Structured Literacy, the Science of Reading, and Orton-Gillingham-based instruction. Her team evaluates each student’s reading and spelling skills, creates an individualized Structured Literacy Plan, and provides the one-on-one tutoring needed to carry it out.
Kids Up Reading Tutors offers live, 1-on-1 online reading, spelling, and dyslexia tutoring for students in grades 1 to 12, including many families right here in Northern Virginia. Most students who do three or more tutoring sessions per week graduate from the program in 4 to 9 months.