Every summer, kids quietly lose ground on reading — and for a child with dyslexia, that slide is steeper and harder to win back in the fall. The good news: a focused 15 minutes a day, done the right way, is enough to hold their progress and keep moving forward.
Start with Level 1 → Not sure where your child is yet? Get the free guide ↓Reading isn’t like riding a bike. The decoding skills your child works so hard to build during the school year fade without regular practice — and researchers have documented this “summer slide” for decades. Kids can return in the fall having lost weeks, sometimes months, of reading growth.
For a child with dyslexia, the stakes are higher. They’ve usually had to work twice as hard for every gain, often through structured intervention during the year. Take that scaffolding away for ten weeks and the regression can erase a big chunk of it — which means starting the new grade already behind, and re-learning ground you already paid for in effort and tears.
But summer cuts both ways. With no homework, no test prep, and no rushing out the door, it’s actually one of the best windows you’ll get to give reading the calm, consistent, daily attention it needs.
A quick look at Level 1 — the summer starting point for struggling and dyslexic readers.
Maybe you’re not here because of a diagnosis. You’re here because something’s been nagging at you. If your child is 5–10 and you’re seeing several of these, it’s worth paying attention:
None of this is a diagnosis — and you don’t need one to start helping. The same structured, multisensory approach that’s the gold standard for dyslexia is simply good first reading instruction for any child who’s struggling to decode.
Here’s what doesn’t work: a stack of random worksheets, a reading app that rewards guessing, or “just read 20 minutes a day” when reading is exactly the thing that’s hard.
A child who struggles to decode doesn’t need more reading. They need reading taught in a specific order — sound by sound, pattern by pattern — so that each piece is solid before the next one stacks on top. That’s the difference between practice that builds and practice that frustrates.
That method has a name: structured literacy, rooted in the Orton-Gillingham approach and backed by the Science of Reading. It’s explicit (nothing is left to guessing), sequential (skills build in order), and multisensory (sight, sound, touch, and movement working together so the learning sticks).
It’s also, until recently, been hard for families to access outside of expensive private tutoring. That’s the gap Apricot Tree Academy was built to close.
Level 1 is where every reader begins — and it’s the perfect summer starting point. It covers Lessons 1–12 across three print workbooks (four lessons each), taking your child from the very foundation — hearing individual sounds in words — through letter sounds, blending, and reading their first real words.
It’s designed for children ages 5–10 and for parents with zero teaching background. You don’t need to be an expert — you need a plan that tells you what to do next.
If you’ve already tried apps, flashcards, or “just reading more” and watched your child stall, it’s not because your child can’t learn to read. It’s almost always because the method didn’t match how a dyslexic brain learns.
Apricot Tree Academy is built on the Orton-Gillingham approach — the most studied, time-tested framework for teaching reading to kids with dyslexia. Three things make it different:
This is the same approach behind the private specialists many families can’t afford or can’t find. We’ve put it into a format you can open on the kitchen table tomorrow morning.
You don’t need to turn summer into school. Level 1 is built to move at a calm, doable pace:
Start when you want, go at your child’s pace, and head into fall holding your ground instead of scrambling to recover it.
Apricot Tree Academy’s curriculum has been honored by independent book-award programs and reviewers for its evidence-based design.
I want to start off by saying how much I love the word lists. I noticed this week that my daughter started to slow down and actually read the words. The tools you used are wonderful and can be used with whatever a student is working on.
We are loving the visual design of all the materials, and the teacher guide is very helpful. The teacher's guide is very spelled out step by step, and it made it easy for me to be prepared and walk Lincoln through the lessons.
In the Intervention Program, C.H.O.P.S. was a great editing tool. It helped define what to do and gave my child more ownership of this.
We loved the matching games in the Intervention Program — we did it as a family. She liked the stories. At first some of the words were confusing but we persisted, and the questions were really good, and she nailed it which built confidence.
Get the workbooks, Teacher Guides, and the Treetop Tales reader shipped to your door, and begin this week.
Shop Level 1 on Amazon →Not sure if it’s dyslexia, or where to begin? Download “My Child Has Dyslexia, Now What?” — 22 pages of plain-language answers and first steps.
Send me the free ebook →No. Because Level 1 starts at the very beginning and moves in small daily steps, you can pick it up any week of the summer and still make real progress. Even a few weeks of consistent, structured practice helps protect what your child gained last year.
Yes — that's exactly who Level 1 is built for. The Teacher Guide walks you through each lesson, telling you what to say and do. Thousands of parents with no teaching background have used this approach. You bring the 15 minutes; we bring the plan.
You don't need a diagnosis to start. Structured, multisensory instruction is simply strong reading instruction — it helps any child who's struggling to decode, and it won't hurt a child who isn't. Summer is a great, low-pressure time to start and see how your child responds.
About 15 minutes a day. Short and consistent works far better than long and occasional — especially for a child who finds reading hard.
No. Level 1 is physical workbooks and a printed reader. It's a deliberate break from screens, with hands-on, multisensory practice.
Level 2 (Lessons 13–24) continues into advanced phonics, syllable types, and morphology — it's available on Amazon when your child is ready.
You can’t pause dyslexia for the summer — but you can use these weeks to protect your child’s progress and build real momentum, 15 minutes at a time.
Start with Level 1 → Or get the free guide first ↓