Dyslexia in Two Languages: Why Your Child May Read Fine in One and Struggle in the Other

It is one of the most common worries in bilingual schools across the Gulf. A child reads English at roughly the expected level but stumbles badly in Arabic — or the reverse. Two conclusions usually follow: she must be dyslexic, or she just isn't trying in that subject. Both can be wrong, and for the same reason: Arabic and English do not ask the same thing of a beginning reader.

Quick answers

The two languages load different skills

In English, the core obstacle is that the mapping from letters to sounds is inconsistent. A child has to build a large store of words whose printed shape she recognises, because spelling does not reliably predict pronunciation.

In Arabic, the obstacles are different, and more numerous than most parent-facing guides admit:

• Short vowels (diacritics). Fully vowelised Arabic is close to phonologically transparent — see the mark, know the sound. But diacritics are omitted from most printed text, so the child must infer vowels from meaning and context. In effect she has to understand in order to read, rather than read in order to understand.
• Letter shapes. Most of the 28 letters change form depending on position in the word; reviews count more than one hundred allographic forms. The child must recognise the same letter in several guises.
• Dots. Several letters differ only in the number or placement of dots. In the review we read, visual-orthographic errors made up more than a quarter of all errors in Grades 1 to 4.
• Diglossia. This is the heaviest factor and the least discussed. A Grade 1 child is not learning to read the language she speaks; she is learning to read a related but distinct variety. The review reports that only about 21% of words were identical across the spoken and standard varieties in the sample studied, that over 60% of children's speech used spoken forms, and that more than 80% of morphemes differ between the two — verb inflections above all.

So a child who reads English faster than Arabic may be entirely typical, because at this stage Arabic is asking more of her, not less.

What transfers between languages — and what does not

This is the key to interpreting the gap, and it has a specific evidence base. In a study of 43 bilingual children (English as a first language, Arabic as a second):

What this means in practice. If the weakness sits in the phonological layer — the layer most accounts of dyslexia rest on — you would expect it to show up in both languages, because that is the skill that crosses over. If the difficulty is confined to one language, other explanations become more likely: amount of exposure, how it has been taught, how many years the child has been learning to read in it, and in Arabic specifically the diglossia gap.

Caveat. That study is described as exploratory, the sample is small (43 children) and from a single setting, and its participants had English as their first language — the reverse of many Gulf children. Treat it as an indicator, not a rule.

Does dyslexia appear in both languages?

A specialist source in this field reports that for bilingual children learning two alphabetic scripts — Arabic and English are both alphabetic — dyslexia typically presents as similar reading deficits in both languages, most likely phonological in origin.

Where the two writing systems are fundamentally different, the picture changes. For Chinese-English bilinguals, only about 30 to 40% of children with reading deficits show signs in both languages; difficulties confined to Chinese more often involve morphological awareness.

The same source makes three points worth stating plainly to any parent here:

• There is no evidence that bilingualism damages literacy acquisition. It may help, because some language skills transfer.
• Early intervention in one language helps, even when it is not available in both of the child's languages.
• Children should ideally learn to read in the language they are strongest in, alongside the new one — not instead of it.

An honest gap in the research

The recent critical review we relied on for the Arabic-specific detail synthesises 29 studies from 2000 to 2025 — and it explicitly excluded bilingual and second-language learners. So the best evidence on reading difficulty in Arabic comes from monolingual children, while the child in a Gulf bilingual school is bilingual by default.

We say this because parent-facing content in this area tends to offer confident answers. The truthful position is that the question Gulf parents actually ask is the least-researched one, and anyone giving you a categorical answer about it is going beyond what the evidence supports.

A note on vowelised text

Many support plans lean on fully vowelised Arabic text, which is reasonable — it makes the script closer to transparent. But the review we read records two details that change how it should be used:

• The benefit is age-dependent. Vowelisation helped most at Grade 5, had no measurable benefit by Grade 7, and was minimal by Grade 9. For skilled readers it can actually slow reading down.
• For children with dyslexia, vowelisation gave little or no benefit while it helped their typically developing peers. The review calls this a double burden.

So if your child is not improving with vowelised text, that is not in itself evidence that she is not trying. It is information to bring to a specialist, rather than a reason to supply more of the same material.

Five things to do this week

1. Document rather than diagnose. Record a short reading sample in each language and keep a spelling sample from each. Compare the kind of error, not the number.
2. Classify the error. Is she mis-reading letters and sounds? Reading words correctly but very slowly? Reading accurately without understanding? Those are three different problems with three different support paths.
3. Check the text before you check the child. In Arabic: is it vowelised? Is the vocabulary Standard and unfamiliar? A child who stumbles on unvowelised, unfamiliar text and reads other passages fluently has a text problem first.
4. Ask the school about exposure, not grades. How many reading periods in each language? From which grade did Arabic reading instruction begin? And English? The gap is frequently in years of instruction, not in the child.
5. If the difficulty persists in both languages at the decoding layer, request an assessment — and ask that it cover both languages. Ask which instrument is used and whether it suits your child's age and language.

When you do not need to intervene yet

• Arabic reading instruction started only months ago while English has been running for years — that is an exposure gap, not an ability gap.
• The difficulty is specific to one text and she reads others fluently — examine text difficulty first.
• Only speed differs, while accuracy and comprehension are sound, and the child is in the early grades — monitoring beats intervening.
• You have not yet tried a modest increase in structured exposure to the weaker language. Ten focused minutes daily does more than one long weekly session.
• The real gap is comprehension and vocabulary, not decoding — a different support path entirely.
• Hearing and vision have not been ruled out — start there.

Frequently asked questions

My child reads English well but struggles in Arabic. Is that dyslexia?

Difficulty in one language alone is not sufficient evidence. At this stage Arabic demands more: text that is mostly unvowelised, letters that change shape by position, and a gap between the child's spoken variety and Standard Arabic. Document the type of error in both languages, and check how many years of reading instruction she has had in each, before drawing conclusions.

And the reverse — fine in Arabic, struggling in English?

The usual explanation is that English letter-to-sound mapping is irregular, so the child needs a larger store of visually familiar words. That is built through structured exposure and repeated reading.

Does learning two languages cause reading difficulty?

No. The sources we reviewed found no evidence that bilingualism harms literacy acquisition, and some suggest it may help, because certain skills transfer between languages.

Should I drop one language to focus on the other?

The sources do not support that. What they describe is learning to read in the stronger language alongside the other, and that intervention in a single language still helps when it is not available in both.

What would actually justify asking for an assessment?

Persistent difficulty in both languages at the level of decoding words and linking letters to sounds, despite adequate teaching and practice, together with a clear gap between listening comprehension and independent reading.

Is assessing one language enough?

Preferably not, because the profile can differ substantially between languages. Ask for an assessment covering both, and ask which instrument is used and how well it suits your child's language.

Is vowelised Arabic text the answer?

It helps, within limits. The benefit fades with age and can slow a skilled reader, and in the review we read it gave little or no benefit to children with dyslexia. If your child is not improving with it, raise that with a specialist.

What is the single first step today?

Record a short reading sample in each language and a spelling sample from each, write down the kind of errors rather than the count, and discuss them with the teachers of both languages together.

If you want a second look at your child's case

You can discuss what you have observed with our team and work out whether the need is targeted support in a specific skill or a specialist assessment. This is educational support — not a medical diagnosis and not a guaranteed outcome. Message us on WhatsApp.

Sources and caveats

• Arabic-specific features (diacritics, letter shapes, dots, diglossia): a peer-reviewed critical review synthesising 29 studies from 2000 to 2025 with native Arabic-speaking children and adolescents. It explicitly excluded bilingual and L2 learners, it is a critical review rather than a meta-analysis, and most of its evidence comes from word-level tasks.
• Cross-language transfer of phonological and morphological awareness: a peer-reviewed study of 43 bilingual children (English L1, Arabic L2). Exploratory, with a small sample, and with a first language that is the reverse of many Gulf children's.
• Whether dyslexia appears in both languages: a specialist dyslexia source. The 30–40% figure refers to Chinese-English bilinguals, not Arabic-English.
• All three were read on 8 October 2026 and are independent of one another.
• This page is informational and does not replace a specialist assessment. Do not use it to diagnose your child or to rule a diagnosis out. If difficulty persists, consult a qualified professional.

Last updated: 8 October 2026.