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Asking a student to read aloud in front of the group without prior warning.
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Marking down for spelling or grammar where accurate written expression is not the actual learning outcome.
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Distributing scanned, image-only PDFs as standard practice.
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Assuming slow reading speed reflects a lack of preparation or effort.
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Withdrawing support because a student compensates well in some situations — compensation is effortful and not always sustainable.
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Treating a request for extra time as an unfair advantage rather than a levelling of an otherwise unequal starting point.
In Practice — A read-aloud request in seminar
A student with dyslexia (a composite, illustrative example) had been contributing confidently to seminar discussion all term, but became visibly anxious and asked to be excused when a new seminar leader, unaware of the student's dyslexia, asked students to take turns reading a passage aloud.
What helped: the seminar leader moved on immediately without drawing further attention to the moment, and afterwards agreed with the student that reading aloud would always be offered as a choice rather than a rota, going forward.
The lesson: the student's confident verbal participation in discussion had masked a genuine difficulty with reading aloud specifically — a reminder that fluency in one mode of communication does not predict fluency in another, and that a single new task format can expose a barrier that had been invisible for weeks.