What's built in
Accessibility isn't a setting we bolted on. It's in the product from day one.
OpenDyslexic font
Designed specifically for dyslexic readers. Heavier letter bottoms help reduce flipping. Toggle on or off — let your child decide what works for their eyes.
Adjustable spacing
More space between letters, words, and lines reduces visual crowding. Some dyslexic kids find this the single most helpful change.
Tinted backgrounds
Some readers find white pages too bright and high-contrast. Cream, light blue, or soft yellow backgrounds reduce visual stress significantly.
Right size, every time
Text scales up so your child isn't squinting at tiny print. No more pinch-zooming or eye strain.
Short by design
Every story is short enough to finish in one sitting at their reading speed. No 20-page slogs. Reading energy is precious — we don't waste it.
Right level, not right age
A 9-year-old reading at a 6-year-old level gets stories pitched at 6 — not stories that crush their confidence by being "Year 5 level".
What actually makes a story readable for a dyslexic child
Most reading material aimed at struggling readers gets one thing wrong: it makes the book younger instead of making it easier. A nine-year-old handed a picture book about a duckling knows exactly what has happened, and it lands as a demotion. The fix isn't babyish content. It's grown-up content at a decodable level.
Short sentences, but not short ideas
Dyslexia affects decoding — turning marks on a page into sounds and words. It doesn't affect imagination, inference or interest. A child who can't read “precariously” can absolutely follow a mystery, want to know who took the glove, and argue about what the character should do next. Keep the sentences short and the stakes real.
Finishable in one sitting
Reading with dyslexia costs more energy per word. A story that takes a fluent reader ten minutes can take forty. If a book can't be finished before that energy runs out, the child never gets the one thing that keeps them coming back — the feeling of having finished something. Length matters more than almost any other single factor.
The page itself, not just the words
Letter shapes, spacing and background colour change how hard the same sentence is to read. OpenDyslexic weights the bottom of each letter so b, d, p and q are harder to confuse. Wider letter and word spacing reduces crowding, where letters visually bleed into their neighbours. A cream or pale blue background cuts the glare that makes some readers say the words “swim”. None of these is a cure, and none works for every child — which is why they should all be adjustable rather than fixed.
Reading level separated from school year
A child in Year 4 who reads at a Year 2 level needs Year 2 text — not Year 4 text with bigger font. Those are different problems and only one of them is solved by accessibility settings. On Primary Story you set the school year and the reading level separately, so a story can be written at the level they read while still being about something a child their age wants to read about.
Printable stories for tutors and reading sessions
Plenty of reading support happens on paper, not on a screen — at a table, in a tutoring session, next to an adult with a pencil. Every Primary Story can be printed as a worksheet: the illustrated story, the comprehension questions, and lines to write answers on.
The printed sheet keeps the child's reading settings. If they read on screen in OpenDyslexic at large size with wider spacing, the printout comes out the same way, in points rather than pixels. A page set up for how a particular child reads is not the same as a generic worksheet, and for one-to-one work that difference is the whole point.
Because stories are generated per child, a tutor can put the student's own name and interests in the text and set the reading level to where that student actually is — which is rarely where a printed scheme assumes they are.
Why this matters more than you'd think
Dyslexic children get told they're struggling readers. Constantly. The school book they bring home is just past what they can handle, so every page is a fight. The school reading tests rank them. The classroom comparison makes them feel slow. By age 8 they've usually concluded: "I'm bad at reading."
The single most important thing you can do at home is break that story. Show them they can read — with the right material, at the right level, with the right tools. Confidence is the foundation. Skills follow confidence, not the other way round.
Primary Story isn't a phonics programme and it's not a replacement for proper specialist support if your child needs it. It's the bit at home where reading can feel like a win, not a fight.
Give them a reading win today
A short story. Their topic. Their level. Their settings. Try one and see what happens when reading stops feeling like work.
Questions parents of dyslexic kids ask
The honest answers about what actually helps
A few specific things, mostly to do with how the text is presented and how it's structured. Visually: a font that's easy to decode (we offer OpenDyslexic and a clean sans-serif), adjustable size and line spacing, and the option for a tinted background that reduces visual stress. Structurally: shorter sentences, predictable structure, repeated phrases that build familiarity, and no overwhelming blocks of text. None of this dumbs the story down — it just removes friction.
OpenDyslexic is a free font designed with weighted bottoms — the heavier base of each letter helps reduce letter flipping and confusion (like b/d or p/q). The research evidence is mixed: some studies show it helps, others show personal preference matters more. Some dyslexic kids love it, some prefer a plain sans-serif like Verdana or Comic Sans. We give you both — try them, see what your child prefers. There's no single right answer.
Because finishing is everything. Dyslexia makes reading slower and more effortful — a long story can mean 20 minutes of intense work for what neurotypical kids do in 5. By the end, they're exhausted and demoralised. A short story they can finish in 5–8 minutes leaves them with the feeling of completion — "I did that" — which builds confidence. Confidence is the lever for everything else.
Four ways. One: stories are short by default — pitched to be finishable. Two: the difficulty matches your child's actual level, not their age — so a dyslexic 9-year-old reading at a 7-year-old level gets stories that feel achievable, not defeating. Three: full accessibility controls — OpenDyslexic font, adjustable spacing, tinted backgrounds, text size, the lot. Four: questions feel like a chat, not a test. We've been told it's the first reading platform where some kids haven't cried.
Whatever works for them. Many dyslexic kids hate reading aloud — it's public, performative, and exposes the struggle. Silent reading with the option to follow along while you read aloud is often gentler. Audiobooks paired with the printed text are also powerful — the ear bridges what the eye can't yet do smoothly. Don't force aloud reading at home; school does enough of that already.
If you've seen consistent signs for more than a few months — letter reversals well past the age you'd expect, can't sound out unfamiliar words despite trying, family history, distress around reading, falling behind classmates and not catching up — talk to the school. They can run informal checks and refer for assessment. A formal diagnosis isn't always needed (some kids do brilliantly with the right support without one), but it can unlock additional school support and accommodations.
No. Co-reading is one of the most effective ways to support a dyslexic child. You read the hard bits, they read the easy bits. You point out the patterns. You celebrate the wins. Independent reading is a goal, not the goal. Some dyslexic kids stay co-readers well into their teens and that's completely fine — they're still building skills, just with a different scaffold.
For most dyslexic kids, structured systematic phonics is the foundation of getting reading to work. If your child hasn't had structured phonics teaching or seems to have gaps, that's worth raising with the school. Primary Story isn't a phonics programme — we sit alongside one, providing the motivating practice that makes phonics learning stick. Both layers matter.
Yes. Every story has a printable version with the illustrations, the comprehension questions and lines to write answers on. It keeps the child's reading settings, so if they read on screen in OpenDyslexic at a larger size with wider spacing, the printout comes out the same way. Tutors and parents doing one-to-one work at a table were the reason we built it.
Yes, and this is the setting most worth changing. School year and reading level are set separately, so a Year 4 child can have stories written with Year 2 vocabulary and sentence lengths while still being about things a nine-year-old cares about. Making the text easier is not the same as making the story younger — a child notices the difference immediately.
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