Gabi Held

Dyslexia Module Paper

Reading Across the Curriculum

Friday, September 15, 2023

Compensatory Strategies and the Simple View of Reading

The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) defines dyslexia as “a language-based

learning disability…referring to a cluster of symptoms, which result in people having difficulties

with specific language skills, particularly reading” (Moats & Dakin, 2020). This definition is

supported by the Iowa Reading Research Center’s (IRRC) “Understanding and Observing the

Literacy Skills Associated with Dyslexia Module.” This course explained how dyslexia may

present in the Pre-reading and Early Reading stages, and how an educator could identify students

with dyslexia. The IRRC’s module connects to the Simple View of Reading by identifying the

specific aspects of reading where a student with dyslexia might struggle and presenting ways that

a student may compensate for those challenges.

One strategy the IRRC defined as a compensatory behavior was “visual reading.” When a

student is visual reading, they are relying on cues like the shape of a word or critical features of a

word rather than letter-sound correspondences. For example, if a student reads the word “plant”

as “planet”, they may be looking at the shape or first and last letters of the word rather than

decoding. The module connected these visual compensatory strategies as prevalent in the early

stages of reading. Students with dyslexia might use visual reading strategies because they have

not achieved automaticity with letter-sound relationships and/or have not fully orthographically

mapped a word to become a sight word. As defined by the Simple View of Reading, skilled
readers utilize word recognition and language comprehension skills to accomplish reading

comprehension. The primary issue with visual reading compensatory behaviors is that it does not

employ decoding skills, which are crucial to word recognition. This means that students will not

be able to fully comprehend a text if they are using visual reading strategies, and therefore will

not be skilled readers.

Another compensatory strategy named in the module was relying on background

knowledge and context clues. This means that a student might be looking at pictures to guess

what a word is or use what they already know about a topic to not only guess a word, but also to

answer comprehension questions. Students with dyslexia may use their background knowledge

to answer comprehension questions because while they were reading, the decoding process was

so labored that they were unable to connect the decoded word to a meaning. Similarly, if a

student is using the pictures to answer comprehension questions or guess at decoding words, this

could also be a result of labored reading. This connects to the Simple View of Reading, showing

the dependent relationship that decoding has with language comprehension. When both skills are

not working together, a student’s overall understanding or reading comprehension will suffer.

The final compensatory strategy that the module named was avoidance. This means that a

student will avoid reading altogether. Avoiding reading can present at any reading stage, and is

often because the student finds a text too challenging or finds decoding words too laborious. The

avoidant behavior relates to the previous behaviors because it exemplifies the idea that decoding

and letter-sound relationships can be particularly difficult for readers with dyslexia. This means

that students will need much more practice to be able to orthographically map a word and read

with automaticity and accuracy.

 The Simple View of Reading shows how certain compensatory strategies identified by

the IRRC in their Understanding Dyslexia Module can be detrimental to a student's overall

success in reading. A few examples of these behaviors are visual reading, relying on background

knowledge, and avoiding reading. For educators, it is important to recognize struggling readers

and the various strategies they may use to compensate for a lack of decoding skills so that those

students can be better supported in the classroom. If teachers can identify these behaviors, they

can provide effective interventions for those students.

 References

Moats, L. C., & Dakin, K. E. (2020, March 10). Dyslexia basics, International Dyslexia

Association. https://dyslexiaida.org/dyslexia-basics/

Farrell, L. The Simple View of Reading. Reading Rockets.

https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/about-reading/articles/simple-view-reading

Understanding and Observing the Literacy Skills Associated with Dyslexia. (2023). Iowa

Reading Research Center.