Supporting dyslexia at A level

"He’s not even that dyslexic and it would help if he stopped talking and did some work."

These are the kind of comments that I have heard often throughout my teaching career with regards to high-achieving dyslexic learners.

As a teacher, it is easy to overlook the needs of the dyslexic student once they have begun their A level courses. Surely if they achieved so highly at GCSE they are able to achieve the same top grades at A level? Don’t they just need to work a bit harder and organise themselves?

Research has shown that dyslexic learners with a high underlying ability are most likely to display learning difficulties for the first time when working at an advanced level. Up until GCSE level, their above-average intelligence enabled to them to provide their own strategies to overcome specific learning difficulties, but at A level, a new range of difficulties come to light.