Picture a seven-year-old who can explain the water cycle in stunning detail, design elaborate engineering projects with building blocks, and engage in conversations that rival those of much older children. Yet this same child struggles to read simple three-letter words and becomes frustrated during story time. This isn’t a contradiction—it’s the reality of twice-exceptional learners.

Twice-exceptional (2e) students are children who demonstrate giftedness in one or more areas while simultaneously experiencing learning challenges such as dyslexia. These students possess remarkable cognitive abilities; they may excel in mathematics, show exceptional creativity, or demonstrate advanced problem-solving skills, while facing significant difficulties with reading due to how their brains process written language. The coexistence of these traits creates unique educational needs that require thoughtful, targeted support.

The Foundation: Why Explicit Phonics Matters for 2e Learners

For twice-exceptional readers, explicit and systematic phonics instruction isn’t just helpful, it’s essential. While their advanced cognitive abilities allow them to compensate for reading difficulties through context clues and memorization, these strategies ultimately limit their reading development and can lead to significant frustration as texts become more complex.

Explicit phonics instruction provides direct, structured teaching through modeling and examples, ensuring students comprehend the material before moving forward. This approach guides students through a step-by-step process, beginning with the simplest, most foundational concepts and building on them sequentially.

For gifted students with dyslexia, this structured approach addresses their specific learning disability while allowing their advanced thinking to shine in comprehension and analysis once decoding barriers are removed.

What makes explicit phonics particularly effective for 2e learners is that it removes the guesswork. Rather than relying on their intelligence to figure out patterns independently (which can lead to inconsistent results and reinforce incorrect strategies), explicit instruction provides clear, unambiguous information about letter-sound relationships. This direct teaching respects both their intellectual capacity and their neurological differences.

Four Evidence-Based Strategies for Supporting Twice-Exceptional Readers

Here are some ways to support these wonderful kiddos.

1. Implement Multisensory Structured Literacy Approaches

Twice-exceptional students benefit enormously from multisensory instruction that engages visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning pathways simultaneously. Programs based on the Orton-Gillingham methodology, which uses tactile activities like tracing letters in sand or forming letters with clay while saying sounds aloud, help reinforce letter-sound connections through multiple channels.

This approach is particularly effective because it bypasses weak processing areas while strengthening neural pathways. When a child sees the letter, hears the sound, says the sound, and physically forms the letter, they’re creating multiple memory traces that support retention. For gifted learners who may process information differently, this redundancy ensures the foundational skills stick.

2. Provide Intellectually Engaging Content While Building Foundational Skills

One of the greatest challenges in supporting 2e readers is maintaining their intellectual engagement while working on basic phonics skills. The solution isn’t to dumb down content but to separate skill-building from intellectual stimulation.

Use decodable texts that align with phonics instruction for skill practice, but also read aloud complex, age-appropriate, or above-age-appropriate texts that challenge their thinking and vocabulary. This dual approach acknowledges that a gifted student with dyslexia may be reading at a second-grade level but thinking at a sixth-grade level. They need exposure to sophisticated ideas and complex language patterns, even as they systematically build decoding skills.

For example, while working on consonant blends through controlled texts, you might read aloud from advanced science texts about topics that fascinate them. This prevents the frustration and boredom that can derail progress when instruction focuses solely on basic materials.

3. Increase Repetition Without Losing Momentum

Children who have difficulty learning certain concepts may need more repetitions when learning a new skill—some children learn a letter sound after only a few practices; others need hundreds of repetitions.

For twice-exceptional learners, the key is providing necessary repetition in varied, engaging ways. Use games, technology, and creative activities to practice the same phonics concepts multiple times without feeling monotonous. Phonics apps with adaptive features can be particularly helpful, as they provide the repetition 2e students need while maintaining engagement through gamification.

Additionally, consider the pacing. These students may grasp phonics concepts intellectually very quickly, but need extensive practice to make the skills automatic. Don’t rush to the next concept just because they understand the principle; automaticity requires time and repeated practice.

4. Address the Emotional and Social-Emotional Aspects

Twice-exceptional students often experience significant frustration and anxiety around reading. They’re acutely aware that their reading abilities don’t match their thinking abilities, which can lead to negative self-talk, avoidance behaviors, and reluctance to engage with reading tasks.

Create a safe learning environment where struggles are normalized and progress is celebrated in small increments. Be explicit about what dyslexia is and isn’t; help them understand that difficulty with reading doesn’t reflect their intelligence. 

Integrate their strengths and interests into phonics practice whenever possible. If they love astronomy, use space-themed materials for phonics activities. If they’re fascinated by engineering, connect phonics lessons to reading technical vocabulary in their area of interest.

Support the Whole Child: A Path Forward

Twice-exceptional readers represent a unique intersection of abilities and challenges that require thoughtful, individualized approaches. The most successful interventions recognize both aspects of these students’ profiles—they’re gifted learners who deserve intellectual challenge and stimulation, and they’re students with dyslexia who need systematic, explicit phonics instruction to become fluent readers.

By implementing evidence-based phonics strategies that honor both their strengths and needs, parents and educators can help these remarkable students develop the reading skills necessary to fully access and express their considerable intellectual gifts. The goal isn’t just reading competency—it’s ensuring that reading difficulties don’t become barriers to the extraordinary potential these students possess.

For more research-backed strategies and resources on supporting early readers with diverse learning needs, visit Phonics.org, where we share expert insights on effective literacy instruction for all learners.