Math homework with dyslexia: what shows up at the kitchen table.

The 30-second version.

Dyslexia affects how the brain maps symbols to sounds and meaning. It's primarily a reading difference, and a lot of parents assume it stops at the page of a book. It doesn't. Math is full of symbols and words and ordered notation, and every one of those is a place dyslexia can bite. A dyslexic kid can have strong number sense — genuinely good at the math itself — and still bleed time and confidence on the parts of the worksheet that are really reading tasks wearing a math costume. The job at the kitchen table is to separate the math from the reading so the reading difficulty stops masking the math ability.

What it actually looks like.

The friction clusters in three places:

1. The word problem is a wall.

A word problem asks the kid to decode the text, hold the meaning in working memory, and thendo the math. For a dyslexic kid, the decoding step alone can use up most of the working memory, so by the time they've read “Marcus has 24 stickers and shares them equally among 6 friends,” there's nothing left to actually divide. They read the same line three times, lose the thread, and look stuck on division when the division was never the problem. This is why the same kid can fly through a column of bare division facts and stall completely on the word-problem version of the identical math.

2. Reversals and transpositions in the numbers.

Dyslexia can show up as reversing digits (writing 6 for 9, or 41 for 14) and transposing them in longer numbers (1,205 becomes 1,025). The kid knows the value; the symbol comes out scrambled on the way to the page. In math this is brutal, because a transposed digit isn't a small error — it's a wrong answer that looks like a careless mistake and gets marked like one. The kid did the thinking right and still got it wrong, which is exactly the experience that teaches a capable kid to believe they're bad at math.

3. The symbols and the columns.

Math notation is dense, ordered, and unforgiving: × vs +, the order of operations, the difference between 36 and 63, keeping the ones under the ones and the tens under the tens in a long-addition column. Tracking left-to-right and top-to-bottom through all of that is precisely the kind of symbol-sequencing dyslexia makes effortful. Numbers drift out of their columns; a sign gets misread; a step gets skipped. Again: not a math failure, a reading-the-math failure.

What it isn't.

Dyscalculia.Dyslexia and dyscalculia can co-occur, but they're different. Dyscalculia is fragility in the sense of quantity itself; dyslexia is difficulty with the symbols and wordsthe quantity is dressed in. A purely dyslexic kid usually has fine number sense — the trouble is getting through the text to use it. If you're trying to tell which one you're seeing, the dyscalculia note walks through that cognitive picture.

Not trying.The kid who re-reads the same problem four times and then says “I can't do it” is not being lazy — they're telling you, in the only words they have, that the decoding cost more than they had to spend. “Just read it again” is the least useful instruction available, because reading it again is the expensive part.

A reflection of intelligence.Dyslexia is uncorrelated with general ability. Bright, verbally articulate kids with dyslexia are common, and they're often missed for years because they compensate so well out loud — which makes the gap between what they can say and what they can write on a math worksheet especially confusing for everyone.

What helps.

The interventions converge on a simple principle: take the reading load off the math wherever you can.

• Read the word problems aloud — together.When you read the problem out loud, you remove the decoding tax and let the kid spend their working memory on the actual math. This is access, not a crutch: you're not doing the math for them, you're getting them to the math. (Plenty of formal plans list read-aloud of word problems as a standard accommodation for exactly this reason.)
• Fewer problems, more space. A crowded page is harder to track. Bigger print, more white space, fewer problems per sheet, and a finger or a ruler to keep the place all reduce the sequencing load.
• Graph paper for column arithmetic.One digit per box keeps the ones under the ones and the tens under the tens, which fixes a whole category of “careless” column errors that were really just numbers drifting out of alignment.
• A dyslexia-friendly font and slower pacing. Some kids read more comfortably in a typeface designed to reduce letter and number confusion, with heavier, distinct shapes. And slowing things down — no clock on the decoding — lets the kid get the symbols right before speed is ever on the table.
• Separate the two skills when you grade. If the math is right but a digit got reversed, name it as a copying slip, not a math mistake. The kid needs to know their math thinking was sound.

What Koda does for dyslexia today.

When you set the dyslexia support flag in the parent portal, two settings that line up with the dyslexia reading shape ship at launch, and you can tune either in the portal:

• The OpenDyslexic font toggle.Koda's kid-facing screens switch from the default handwriting typeface to a dyslexia-oriented font with heavier, more distinct letter and number shapes. This one is wired today — flip the toggle and the type changes.
• Slower animation pacing. The dyslexia default slows the on-screen animation speed, so things move at a less rushed pace while the kid reads and works. Adjustable in the portal.

Beyond those settings, the design helps in a quieter way: Koda is paper-first. Your child works the problems on a real worksheet with a pencil — the overhead camera watches the paper — instead of decoding everything off a screen, and the tutor stays out of the way unless the kid is genuinely stuck. For a dyslexic kid, less screen-reading and a calmer page is part of the point. We wrote about the paper-first decision here.

What we're building next.

An honest line between shipped and planned, because over-claiming helps nobody:

• Read-aloud of word problems inside the appis not a feature we ship today. The single most useful dyslexia accommodation — hearing the problem instead of decoding it — is still a job for a parent or teacher reading aloud at the table for now. An in-app version is on the roadmap, and we'll announce it when it actually works rather than imply it already does.
• Dyslexia-aware problem layout— automatically more white space, fewer problems per view, larger number print when the flag is on — is a direction we're building toward, not a switch that's fully live yet.

What Koda is not.

A diagnosis.Dyslexia is identified by a qualified evaluator. Koda doesn't make that call and shouldn't. If you suspect dyslexia, the right next step is a formal evaluation — not flipping on a support flag and hoping.

A reading-intervention program. The structured, evidence-graded reading instruction a dyslexic kid needs (the Orton-Gillingham family of approaches and similar) is its own discipline, delivered by trained specialists. Koda is a math tutor that respects how a dyslexic kid reads; it is not a substitute for that reading work.

A substitute for an IEP or 504. If your child has a formal plan, Koda runs alongside it. The settings line up with common accommodations, but the plan — the read-aloud on tests, the extra time, the specialist sessions — is the load-bearing piece.

If this sounds like your kid.

Two practical things. First, ask your child's school about an evaluation; in most US districts schools are required to evaluate on request, and the diagnosis (or its absence) makes everything that follows clearer. Second, tonight, read the word problems aloud and watch what happens to the math — for a lot of dyslexic kids, it's the fastest way to see the math ability that the reading was hiding.

If you want to know when Koda is available, the waitlist gets you launch details and early-bird pricing. Drop your email and we'll write when there's something to ship. And if part of what you're seeing looks more like dread than decoding, what math anxiety actually is in elementary kids covers that. The related-but-different ADHD playbook is here.