Last week, someone on the IFLS Youth Services email list asked for suggestions for a 3rd grade student who has dyslexia.  IFLS library folks pitched in to share some great ideas, and IFLS staff supplemented.  If you are looking for collection development or readers advisory ideas to better serve students with dyslexia or other reading challenges, here are some places to start!

• The Libby App does offer a dyslexic font* for many books available in the digital collection, including children’s titles. The only exception would be titles that have a “fixed layout” such as graphic novels or other image-based content. You can learn how to turn this on in the Libby Help website.
• Dyslexia-Friendly Books is a subject heading in MORE, most of the books are for middle-grade readers (3-6th grade)
• In early 2025, IFLS hosted a webinar called Empowering Readers:  Serving Dyslexic Kids and Other Emerging Readers at the Library with reading specialists and tutors Becky Glade and Starla Dixen.
  • The final slides of the slide deck have lists of decodable books they recommend for children and teens with dyslexia.
    • Baldwin has a large collection of decodable readers and hi-lo readers for a wide range of ages that may be of interest.  Molly Haley has curated that collection, and would be a good person to talk with about that.
  • That webinar also recommended pairing audio and books is an excellent tool.
    • Vox or Wonderbooks are a great option (but expensive).
    • You could also pair audiobooks on Libby or Playaways (or a good old fashioned book on CD if the patron has the right equipment) with the print copy (though there are no page-turn signals)
    • Libby also works with screen readers, so if a child has a screen reader this is a good option to consider
    • You can recommend the family register for Bookshare, which offers audiobooks and ebooks to customize reading for people with print disabilities for free (currently funded by the US Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs).
  • Becky and Starla, along with many other experts, recommend graphic novels for people with dyslexia.
• Resources from the Association for Library Service to Children:
  • 2024 blog post:  https://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2024/09/libraries-supporting-students-with-dyslexia-alsc2024/
  • 2021 Toolkit:  Serving Children with Print Disabilities:  https://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2021/04/children-with-print-disabilities/

*Please make sure to communicate that the font is only a bit of an assist, not a cure! https://www.edutopia.org/article/do-dyslexia-fonts-actually-work.