Struggling Reader or Never Taught? Ask Before Accepting a Label
Last updated:
Jenny Kier watched her son Hunter breeze through math while falling further behind in reading every year, the pattern that sends thousands of families toward an evaluation and a label. Her family’s turning point was not a diagnosis. It was a structured literacy program, twenty minutes a day, four days a week, that brought Hunter to grade-level reading in eight months. This week Kier published her conclusion in eSchool News: her son was never dyslexic, he was never properly taught to read. Her story lands on the question decades of reading science keep putting to schools, and it is the question to ask first: before anyone names what is wrong with a struggling reader, examine what that reader was taught.
TL;DR
Jenny Kier, an account executive at structured-literacy provider Reading Horizons, argued in a July 23, 2026 eSchool News essay that her son Hunter was headed toward a dyslexia label when the actual problem was instruction that never explicitly taught decoding.
Hunter began a structured literacy program in sixth grade, 20 minutes a day, four days a week, and reached grade-level reading within eight months; he is now 16, graduating early with honors, and accepted to Texas A&M for engineering.
On the 2024 NAEP, 31 percent of U.S. fourth graders read at or above Proficient and 40 percent scored below Basic; eighth graders posted the largest below-Basic share in the assessment's 32-year history.
Eye-tracking research by Keith Rayner shows skilled readers process nearly every letter, while guessing from context marks struggling readers; three-quarters of K-2 teachers reported using the guessing-based three-cueing method as recently as 2019.
Since the Sold a Story investigation began in 2022, at least 26 states have passed reading-instruction laws and at least 15 have restricted cueing, per APM Reports.
A mother’s essay in eSchool News argues her son was headed for a dyslexia label when the true problem was reading instruction that never taught him the code. Here is her story, the science that supports the sharper question underneath it, and the order in which parents should ask it.
Common questions
How do I know if my child has dyslexia or was never taught to read properly?
From the outside the two look identical at first: slow, effortful reading, weak spelling, avoidance. The sorting mechanism is response to instruction. Find out whether your child’s school teaches decoding explicitly and in sequence; if not, an instruction gap is a live possibility, and explicit practice should move the needle within months, as it did for Hunter Kier. Persistent difficulty despite strong, explicit teaching points toward a real processing difference. A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing, or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too; that is the only route to those supports. Our at-home dyslexia screener shows you where to start today.
What is three-cueing, and why have so many states restricted it?
Three-cueing coaches children to identify words using meaning, sentence structure, and visual hints, in practice guessing from pictures and context. Decades of eye-tracking research by Keith Rayner show skilled readers process nearly every letter and rely more on letter-sound information as they improve; cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg describes three-cueing as how poor readers read. After the Sold a Story investigation brought that evidence to the public, at least 26 states passed reading-instruction laws and at least 15 restricted cueing, per APM Reports.
My child is in middle school. Is it too late to catch up in reading?
No. Hunter Kier started structured literacy in sixth grade and reached grade level in eight months. Brain-imaging studies by Sally Shaywitz at Yale and Elise Temple at Stanford show readers who struggle develop the same reading pathways as typical readers after intensive, appropriate intervention. Older students often need more intensity and more time, which is an argument for starting now rather than waiting for another school year of data.
What should I ask my child’s school about reading instruction?
Three questions do most of the work. What is the core reading program, and does it teach phonics and decoding explicitly and in sequence? When a child scores below benchmark, what specific intervention starts, and when? How is progress measured, and how often do families see the data? Guessing-based red flags in the answers, such as prompting children to use picture clues or predict words from context, tell you the burden of catching a reading struggle still sits with you.
A Math Ferrari, a Stalled Reader, and an Eight-Month Turnaround
Kier’s essay, published July 23 in eSchool News, traces a familiar arc. Hunter’s reading comprehension difficulties surfaced in fifth grade. By sixth grade the decoding gaps had widened, even as his math kept accelerating. Literacy expert Paul Black assessed him and gave the boy a picture of his own mind: “Your math brain is a Ferrari. You can see things before they’re even built. Your reading brain is more like a Honda Civic.” The intervention that followed was not exotic. Hunter worked through a structured literacy program, twenty minutes a day, Monday through Thursday, learning the sound-to-letter code nobody had explicitly taught him.
Within eight months he read and comprehended at grade level. He is now 16, graduating high school early with honors, accepted to Texas A&M for engineering. Kier’s argument from that experience is pointed: many intelligent struggling readers are missing foundational skills because instruction never delivered them, and structured literacy should be how schools teach every child, not a remedy unlocked by a diagnosis. “Children deserve explicit instruction in phonics, decoding, and language structure before frustration becomes identity,” she writes.
She anchors the stakes in the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress: 31 percent of U.S. fourth graders read at or above the Proficient level, while 40 percent scored below Basic, and eighth graders posted the largest below-Basic share in the assessment’s 32-year history. One disclosure belongs on the table, and Kier’s byline carries it: she is an account executive at Reading Horizons, a company that sells structured literacy curriculum. Her essay is a personal account, not a study. The science it points to, though, stands on its own.
Author Quote"
“Children deserve explicit instruction in phonics, decoding, and language structure before frustration becomes identity.”
Jenny Kier, parent and account executive at Reading Horizons, writing in eSchool News
"
What the coverage gets wrong
A first-person essay under this headline invites a reading the evidence does not support: that dyslexia labels are mostly mistakes. The narrower, well-documented claim is that guessing-based instruction, used by three-quarters of K-2 teachers as recently as 2019 per the EdWeek Research Center, trains the habits Keith Rayner's eye-movement research found in struggling readers, so bad instruction predictably produces some share of them. Real phonological processing differences also exist; the International Dyslexia Association's 2025 definition describes a brain-based difficulty occurring across all intelligence levels. Both are true, and structured literacy is the evidence-backed first response either way. One more piece of context the syndicated versions skip: the author is an account executive at Reading Horizons, a structured literacy company. Her argument tracks the independent science, and readers still deserve that fact. For a parent, the takeaway is an order of operations, not a verdict on labels.
The Science Stopped Blaming the Child a Long Time Ago
Children soak up spoken language by being around it. Reading is different: it is a roughly 5,000-year-old cultural invention the brain never evolved for, which is why researchers from David Geary to Stanislas Dehaene to Maryanne Wolf converge on the same conclusion the National Reading Panel reached in 2000. There is no reading instinct to fall back on, so the code has to be explicitly, systematically taught, for every reader who ever lived. A child who was never taught that code and struggles is not displaying a disorder. He is displaying the predictable result.
The instruction many classrooms delivered instead trained the wrong habits on purpose. Decades of eye-tracking research by Keith Rayner show that skilled readers process nearly every letter on the page and lean harder on letter-sound information as they improve, while guessing from pictures and context is the signature of struggling readers. Cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg calls the three-cueing approach “descriptive of how poor readers read.” Yet as recently as 2019, three-quarters of K-2 teachers told the EdWeek Research Center they used it. It took Emily Hanford’s Sold a Story investigation to force the issue, and the correction is still in progress: at least 26 states have passed reading-instruction laws since 2022, and at least 15 have restricted cueing, per APM Reports. Minnesota Sen. Zach Duckworth captured the absurdity: “When I say to people, ‘We need to teach our kids to sound out words,’ they look at me like, ‘Well, of course, isn’t that what we’re doing?'”
None of this means dyslexia is invented. The International Dyslexia Association’s 2025 definition describes a real, brain-based difficulty mapping the sounds of language onto print, occurring across all intelligence levels, often traveling with working memory and processing speed differences. Two things are true at once: guessing-based instruction manufactured struggling readers at scale, and some children need more than a curriculum fix. Structured literacy is the evidence-backed first move for both groups, and phonics, while necessary, was never the whole answer for every child. To understand how reading difficulties develop and respond to the right practice, see our complete guide to dyslexia and reading differences.
Key Takeaways:
1
Instruction before label: Hunter reached grade-level reading in eight months once explicit teaching replaced guessing.
2
Guessing was mainstream: In 2019, three-quarters of K-2 teachers reported using the three-cueing approach.
3
Both things are true: Poor instruction manufactures struggling readers, and real phonological differences still exist.
The Questions That Sort It Out, in Order
Ask the instruction question first. What is the core reading program at your school, and does it teach decoding explicitly and in sequence? Listen for the red flags of guessing-based teaching: “look at the picture,” “skip it and come back,” “what would make sense here?” Then ask what changes on the Monday after a below-benchmark score. A district serious about reading answers with a specific, explicit intervention and progress data families get to see. A watch list is not an answer.
Then watch how your child responds to genuinely explicit teaching. Hunter’s eight-month turnaround is what an instruction gap looks like when it closes. Months of strong, structured instruction with flat progress is a different signal, and a valuable one: that is the moment to pursue a professional evaluation, both to open the door to formal supports and to look at the fuller picture of systems reading draws on, from language to working memory to processing speed. Neither path wastes time, because the same explicit teaching serves both.
The deadline that matters is not academic. It is identity. Kier’s sharpest line is about frustration hardening into a story a child tells about himself, and the research on identity-based motivation backs her: “I’m bad at reading” operates as a prediction children act on, and every session either confirms it or rewrites it. Hunter started catching up in sixth grade, and brain-imaging research by Sally Shaywitz at Yale and Elise Temple at Stanford shows why that worked: readers who struggle develop the same reading pathways as typical readers after intensive, appropriate intervention. The label question has time. The instruction question does not.
Author Quote"
“Your math brain is a Ferrari. You can see things before they’re even built. Your reading brain is more like a Honda Civic.”
Paul Black, literacy expert, assessing Hunter Kier, as recounted in eSchool News
"
Parents keep being told the first step for a struggling reader is a name for the problem. Kier’s story argues the first step is a hard look at the teaching, and decades of reading science back her. The villain here is not any teacher or school leader; it is a guessing-based approach that stayed in classrooms for decades after the evidence turned against it, and the slow-moving system that kept it there. Nobody will ever advocate for your child as hard as you will, and you are the one adult positioned to ask both questions in the right order.
The Learning Success All Access program puts multi-system tools in your hands to start building your child’s reading skills at home today. Start here.
Is Your Child Struggling in School?
Get Your FREE Personalized Learning Roadmap
Comprehensive assessment + instant access to research-backed strategies
