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The Dyslexia Stress Cycle: When Struggling to Learn Makes Learning Even Harder

Written by Hafizah Nasir,
Educational Therapist

A child refuses to read. They push their worksheet away. They say, “I can’t do this.” Perhaps they become restless, frustrated or even angry. An adult might respond, “You know this. You just need to try harder.”

But what if the behaviour is telling us something else?

What if the child is not simply refusing to learn, but has begun to associate learning with frustration, embarrassment or failure?

For some children with dyslexia, repeated experiences of difficulty can create a cycle in which learning difficulties, emotional stress and avoidance begin to reinforce one another.

The cycle can look something like this:

This does not happen to every child with dyslexia, and dyslexia does not inevitably lead to anxiety or avoidance. However, research suggests that reading difficulties are associated with increased internalising difficulties, particularly anxiety, and that children’s experiences at school can play an important role in their emotional wellbeing.

Understanding this cycle can help adults respond to behaviour differently.

The Cycle Begins With a Genuine Difficulty

For a child with dyslexia, reading and spelling can require considerably more effort than they appear to require for some of their peers.

A child may need to work harder to decode unfamiliar words. They may need more time to retrieve spelling patterns or recognise words automatically. They may understand a passage when it is read aloud but struggle to access the same information independently.

These difficulties are real. They are not simply a matter of motivation. When a task is repeatedly difficult, however, the emotional experience surrounding that task can also begin to change.

At first, a child may simply think, this word is hard. After repeated struggles, that thought may become, reading is hard. Eventually, it might become, I’m bad at reading. This is where the emotional side of learning becomes important.

Research has found associations between poor reading and anxiety, as well as other internalising difficulties. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 34 studies found that poor readers showed higher levels of internalising problems than typical readers, with the strongest association observed for anxiety.

From Frustration to Anxiety

Imagine a student who is asked to read aloud in class. The student knows that reading is difficult. They remember struggling during the previous lesson. They worry that they might mispronounce a word and that their classmates might notice. 

Before they even begin reading, they are already anticipating failure. Their heart may beat faster. Their attention may shift towards what could go wrong. The task that was once simply difficult has now become threatening.

This is one reason emotional responses to literacy tasks should not be dismissed as overreactions.

Research with children with reading difficulties has found a relationship between reading anxiety and reading self-concept. Children who perceive themselves as less competent readers may experience greater anxiety about reading, which can contribute to avoidance.

The important point is that anxiety can change the way a child approaches a task.

Once a task becomes associated with anxiety or embarrassment, avoiding it can provide immediate relief.

  • The child may say, “I don’t want to read.”
  • They may ask to go to the toilet.
  • They may sharpen their pencil repeatedly.
  • They may distract a classmate.
  • They may become silly or disruptive.
  • They may simply stare at the page.

From the outside, these behaviours can look like a lack of motivation. But avoidance can sometimes function as a short-term coping strategy.

If reading makes a child feel anxious, avoiding reading may temporarily make that uncomfortable feeling disappear. The problem is that while avoidance may reduce anxiety in the moment, it can make the longer-term problem harder to solve. 

The child gets fewer opportunities to practise. They have fewer opportunities to experience successful reading. The task remains unfamiliar and difficult, and the next time they are asked to read, the anxiety may return. The cycle begins again.

This is not an argument for allowing children to avoid difficult tasks indefinitely. Instead, it highlights the importance of understanding why avoidance is happening and finding ways for children to approach challenging tasks with appropriate support.

The Cycle Can Affect Motivation

As this pattern continues, motivation can also begin to change. A child who repeatedly experiences success may learn, if I practise, I can get better. A child who repeatedly experiences failure may instead learn, what’s the point? I’m going to get it wrong anyway. This is where beliefs about competence become important. If a child begins to believe that their effort will not make a difference, they may become less willing to invest effort in the task.

Research on students with learning difficulties has found relationships between academic self-concept, reading anxiety, reading motivation and reading comprehension. In a recent study of secondary students with learning disabilities, academic self-concept was associated with reading anxiety and motivation, which in turn were related to reading comprehension.

The takeaway is not that every child who struggles with reading will lose motivation. Rather, it reminds us that how children feel about themselves as learners can influence how they approach learning.

When Adults Misread the Behaviour

This is where the cycle can become particularly difficult to break. A teacher sees a child refusing to complete a worksheet. The teacher thinks, he’s being lazy. The child hears, I’m lazy.

A parent sees the child avoiding homework. The parent thinks, she doesn’t care about school. The child hears, I’m disappointing my parents.

Neither adult may realise that the behaviour is connected to the child’s previous experiences of difficulty.

Research exploring the experiences of children with dyslexia and their parents found that children described school-related worries, stress and embarrassment. Parents also described homework resistance, emotional outbursts and school refusal in relation to their children’s difficulties.

A 2025 scoping review similarly identified a range of school-related stressors experienced by students with dyslexia, highlighting that the difficulties children encounter extend beyond the mechanics of reading and writing and can affect their emotional and social experiences at school.

This does not mean that adults should excuse every challenging behaviour. It means we should look beyond the behaviour.

Breaking the Cycle

The good news is that cycles can be interrupted. Adults do not need to eliminate every difficulty from a child’s learning experience. In fact, children need opportunities to experience productive struggle. The goal is to make sure that difficulty does not continually lead to distress, avoidance and failure.

Here are some ways we can help.

  1. Identify the Point Where the Child Gets Stuck

“Reading is hard” is a broad statement.

Try to identify what specifically is difficult.

  • Is the child struggling to decode unfamiliar words?
  • Are they losing their place?
  • Is the vocabulary unfamiliar?
  • Is the text too long?
  • Are they worried about reading aloud?
  • Are they struggling to remember instructions while also reading?

The more precisely we identify the difficulty, the more effectively we can respond.

Instead of saying, “Try harder.” We can say, “Let’s work out which part is getting in the way.”

That changes the task from a judgement into a problem to solve.

  1. Reduce Unnecessary Performance Pressure

For some children, being asked to perform a difficult literacy skill in front of others can create significant anxiety. Where appropriate, provide opportunities to practise privately, with a partner or in a small group before expecting public performance.

A child who is anxious about reading aloud, for example, might first practise the passage with an adult before reading it to the class. The aim is not to protect children from every uncomfortable experience. It is to build confidence gradually rather than repeatedly placing them in situations where they expect to fail.

  1. Create Opportunities for Successful Practice

If every encounter with reading ends in frustration, the child has very little evidence that effort can lead to success. Provide tasks that are appropriately challenging and allow children to experience progress.

That might mean:

  • shorter texts
  • carefully selected vocabulary
  • repeated reading
  • explicit teaching
  • additional processing time
  • appropriate assistive technology
  • opportunities to demonstrate understanding verbally

Success does not mean making everything easy. It means creating a pathway where the child can experience progress instead of avoidance. 

We often teach children what to learn without teaching them what to do when learning becomes difficult. Give children a toolkit of strategies.

For example:

“If I don’t know the word, I can…” 

  • look at the sounds
  • break the word into parts
  • look for a familiar pattern
  • reread the sentence
  • use the context
  • ask for help

Similarly:

“If I feel frustrated, I can…”

  • pause
  • take a breath
  • identify the difficult part
  • try a different strategy
  • ask for clarification
  • take a short, appropriate break

The goal is to replace “I can’t do this” with “I don’t know how to do this yet. What strategy could I try?”

4. Notice the Emotional Signs

Not every child will say, “I’m anxious about reading.”

Children may communicate distress through behaviour instead.

Look out for patterns such as:

None of these signs automatically mean that a child is experiencing anxiety. But patterns are worth paying attention to.

If emotional distress is persistent, severe or affecting a child’s daily functioning, parents and educators should consider seeking support from an appropriate healthcare or mental health professional.

5. Build the Child’s Sense of Competence

Perhaps the most powerful way to interrupt the cycle is to help children develop a more accurate and positive understanding of themselves as learners. This does not mean telling them, “You’re good at everything!”

Children know when something is difficult. Instead, help them recognise specific strengths and progress. 

  • “You couldn’t decode that word independently last month. Today you used the strategy without prompting.” 
  • “You found that passage difficult, but you kept going and asked for help when you needed it.” 
  • “You made a mistake, noticed it and corrected it.”

These experiences give children evidence that strategies and support can make a difference. And that belief matters.

Seeing the Behaviour, Seeing the Child

A child with dyslexia may sometimes look unmotivated, resistant or careless. But behind the behaviour may be a child who has experienced repeated difficulty and is trying to make sense of it. That does not mean every challenging behaviour should be attributed to dyslexia. It means that behaviour deserves context.

The goal is not to remove every challenge from a child’s education. Children need challenge. They need opportunities to persevere, make mistakes and discover that they can overcome difficulties. But they also need to believe that their effort is worthwhile.

Encouragingly, emerging research suggests that socio-emotional support can help. A 2026 randomised controlled trial of the Clever Kids programme found that a nine-week intervention targeting coping, emotion regulation and self-esteem was associated with improvements in children’s coping, emotion regulation and academic and social self-esteem, as well as parent-reported anxiety and depression. These effects were maintained at three-month follow-up, although the researchers’ note that further research is needed (Boyes et al., 2026).

This gives us an important reason for hope. We may not be able to remove every difficulty a child encounters. But we can change what happens after the difficulty appears.

References & Further Reading

Boyes, M., Melville, K., Nayton, M., Pizzey, H., & Leitão, S. (2026)

Boyes, M., Melville, K., Nayton, M., Pizzey, H., & Leitão, S. (2026). Targeting coping strategies, emotion regulation, and self-esteem in children with dyslexia to support mental health: A randomized-controlled trial of Clever Kids. British Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online publication.

Sümer Dodur, H. M., & Ceylan, M. (2025)

Sümer Dodur, H. M., & Ceylan, M. (2025). Academic self-concept and reading comprehension among students with learning disabilities: Serial mediating effect of reading anxiety and reading motivation. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 836–848.

Wilmot, A., Hasking, P., Leitão, S., Hill, E., & Boyes, M. (2023b)

Wilmot, A., Hasking, P., Leitão, S., Hill, E., & Boyes, M. (2023). Understanding mental health in developmental dyslexia: A scoping review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(2), 1653.

Wilmot, A., Pizzey, H., Leitão, S., Hasking, P., & Boyes, M. (2023a)

Wilmot, A., Pizzey, H., Leitão, S., Hasking, P., & Boyes, M. (2023). Growing up with dyslexia: Child and parent perspectives on school struggles, self-esteem, and mental health. Dyslexia, 29(1), 40–54.

Mori, J., Prinz, K., Fischer, U., Tönnissen, L., Hofmann, C., Plank, J., Hövel, D., Schabmann, A., Gasteiger-Klicpera, B., & Schmidt, B. M. (2025)

Mori, J., Prinz, K., Fischer, U., Tönnissen, L., Hofmann, C., Plank, J., Hövel, D., Schabmann, A., Gasteiger-Klicpera, B., & Schmidt, B. M. (2025). Challenging school-related situations faced by students with dyslexia: A scoping review. Annals of Dyslexia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-025-00356-9

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