Reading With Dyslexia and ADHD: 9 Ways to Make It Easier

Updated 1 November 2026

With ADHD alone, the words go in but your attention slips off them. With dyslexia alone, staying focused is not the problem, but working out each word takes real effort. When you have both, the two feed each other: the effort of decoding wears your attention down faster, and every time your mind wanders you have to go back and decode the same lines again.

That double load is why a lot of general reading advice falls flat. "Just read for longer" does not help when every page is hard work twice over. This guide is about reading with both, and about choosing tips that ease the decoding and the focus at the same time. If ADHD is your main struggle, our guide on how to read with ADHD covers the attention side in more depth.

What each one does to reading

It helps to know which difficulty is behind which problem, because the fixes are different.

Dyslexia mainly affects turning written letters into words and sounds. Reading tends to be slower and more tiring, long or unfamiliar words can be a struggle, and spelling is often hard too. It has nothing to do with intelligence.
ADHD mainly affects holding attention on something that is not grabbing you. You may read a whole page without taking it in, lose your place, or find it hard to start at all.

In practice the two blur together. A slow, effortful page is exactly the kind of low-reward task that an ADHD brain wanders away from. So the most useful changes do two jobs at once: they make each word easier to get, and they give your attention less chance to leave.

1. Make the page itself easier to read

The way text is laid out makes a bigger difference than most people expect. Dyslexia style guides, such as the one published by the British Dyslexia Association, suggest things like:

A plain sans serif font, such as Arial, Verdana or Calibri, at a comfortable size.
More space between lines and between paragraphs.
Text aligned to the left, not justified, so the gaps between words stay even.
An off-white or cream background rather than bright white.
Bold for emphasis, rather than italics, underlining or capital letters.

You can apply most of this yourself. E-readers, phones and browser reading modes let you change the font, size, spacing and background, and you can paste a document into a word processor and reformat it before you read it. Spending five minutes setting this up once saves effort on every page after.

2. Listen while you read

Following the text while you listen to it takes much of the strain of decoding off you, and the steady pace of the voice keeps your attention moving forward. You still see every word, so you keep building familiarity with how words look.

Use an audiobook alongside the book for fiction, and your device's text-to-speech for everything else. On an iPhone, Speak Screen with Highlight Content turned on shows each word as it is spoken. Microsoft's Immersive Reader, built into Edge and Word, reads text aloud too, and can also split words into syllables, which helps with long ones. Start the voice slower than feels necessary, then speed up once following along feels easy. Our guide to ADHD reading tools has more on setting these up.

Some countries also have accessible book libraries for people with print disabilities, which can include dyslexia. Bookshare in the US is one example. It is worth checking what exists where you live.

3. Make sessions shorter than you think they should be

Decoding is tiring, and tiredness is when attention gives way. Ten focused minutes are worth more than forty minutes of rereading the same paragraph. Set a timer, stop when it goes off, and take a proper break before the next session: stand up, move, look at something far away.

Notice when reading starts to feel like pushing through mud. That is your cue to stop, not to try harder. Over a few weeks you will get a feel for how long you can read well, and you can plan around that instead of fighting it.

4. Meet the hard words before you need them

Stumbling over an unfamiliar word in the middle of a sentence breaks your flow, and that break is often where your attention escapes. You can take some of those stumbles out in advance:

Before a chapter or article, skim it for long words, technical terms and names.
Write the tricky ones down, say them aloud, and look up any you do not know.
For novels, keep a short list of the main characters' names in the back of the book, so you are not decoding them afresh every time.

Skimming the headings, or the first and last paragraphs, also gives you an outline of what is coming. Knowing roughly where the text is going makes it easier to follow and easier to stay with.

5. Keep your eyes on one line

Losing your place is common with both dyslexia and ADHD, and finding it again costs effort you do not have to spare. Lay an index card, a ruler or a reading strip under the line you are reading and slide it down as you go. On a computer, Immersive Reader's line focus does the same job on screen by dimming everything except one or a few lines. Running a finger under the words works too, and there is no reason to feel self-conscious about it.

6. Try reading one word at a time, at a slow pace

One-word-at-a-time reading, also called rapid serial visual presentation or RSVP, shows each word on its own in the same spot on the screen. There are no lines to track and no crowded page around the word you are reading, and the steady rhythm gives a wandering mind something to hold on to.

Be realistic about it, though. It removes the tracking and the clutter, but you still have to read each word, and the next one arrives whether you are ready or not. For readers with dyslexia that means:

Start slowly. Much slower than the speeds you see advertised for speed reading is fine. Pick a pace where you are understanding, not just watching words go by.
Stop and go back whenever a word trips you up. Rereading is part of reading, not a failure.
Use it for straightforward text, such as novels, articles and emails, rather than dense material with diagrams.

Some people with dyslexia find it far easier than a full page; others find it harder. A few short sessions will tell you which camp you are in. Our guide to RSVP reading explains how it works in more detail.

7. Read what pulls you in

Interest is what keeps an ADHD brain going, and when reading is also hard work, interest matters even more. Choose books that grab you, at a reading level that feels comfortable, without worrying about what you think you ought to be reading. Graphic novels, short stories, fast-paced thrillers, magazines and books with short chapters all count.

Some publishers produce books designed for dyslexic readers, with clearer layouts and tinted paper. Barrington Stoke in the UK is one, though most of its list is aimed at children and teenagers. For adults, an ebook with your own font settings often does a similar job.

8. Check what you've taken in, little and often

When decoding takes most of your effort, there is less left over for following the meaning, so it is easy to reach the end of a page without much of it sticking. Build in quick checks:

At the end of each page or section, say in one sentence what just happened or what the main point was.
If you cannot, reread just that section, ideally with audio this time.
For study reading, talk it through with someone or record a voice note instead of writing long notes.

For textbooks in particular, our guide on how to read textbooks with ADHD covers turning chapters into questions and checking yourself as you go.

9. Ask for support where you study or work

Schools, colleges, universities and many employers can offer support for reading difficulties, such as extra time, reading material in advance, digital copies you can reformat, or assistive software. What is available, and what paperwork you need, varies by country and by institution, so ask the disability or student support service, or your manager or HR team. You do not have to struggle through on willpower alone.

If you're not sure what's behind it

ADHD and dyslexia often occur together, but they are assessed separately and helped in different ways. If you have one diagnosis and suspect the other, it is worth asking about an assessment. Dyslexia is usually assessed by an educational psychologist or a specialist assessor, and ADHD by a doctor. It is also worth having an eye test with an optometrist if text looks blurred, seems to move, or gives you headaches, as those can have other causes.

Questions people ask

Can you have dyslexia and ADHD at the same time?

Yes. They are separate conditions, but it is common to have both. Because each can make reading harder in its own way, one can easily be missed when the other has already been spotted.

How do I know whether my reading trouble is dyslexia or ADHD?

A rough guide: if you can read accurately when you are fully focused but your attention keeps sliding off, that sounds more like attention. If working out the words themselves is slow and effortful even when you are completely focused, that sounds more like dyslexia. Only a proper assessment can tell you, and it may well be both.

Do dyslexia fonts help?

Some readers find specially designed dyslexia fonts more comfortable, but they do not suit everyone, and a plain, well-spaced sans serif font works well for many people. Try a page in each and keep whichever feels least effortful to you.