There are many children who struggle with reading, while being evidently bright and hard working.

Initially everything can seem OK. But, while other children's reading progresses steadily, these children will hit a plateau at around 6. As the text they are expected to read gets more complicated, they will get more and more confused, often guessing wildly.

Eventually their confidence begins to crumble. They can feel the frustration and concern of the adults around them, but don't know what to do.

Sometimes this leads to a diagnosis of dyslexia, which is quite wrong.

Dyslexia suggests a fundamental problem with reading, despite normal intelligence.

But these children have no real reason not to be able to read. They are just approaching it in the wrong way.

Let me explain what's happening.

A child will always approach a problem in what seems the easiest way. To a visual child, memorising the alphabet and simple words seems easy. People praise their achievement. So they think that they are reading. And early reader books encourage this with a very limited vocabulary.

So all seems well.

But problems develop as the text starts to use a broader range of words. Some children will naturally switch to scanning the words phonetically.

Others cannot make the switch without careful instruction. Their auditory perception just isn't up to hearing the phonic structure of the words.

And these are the children that get stuck.

You will see them guessing wildly, just using the context and the first letter of the word.

They are frustrated and puzzled by their situation and don't know the way out of it. They can sense the frustration of their teacher and parents, but have actually been doing their best.

Without expert guidance, these children will become part of the 20% who still cannot read properly by the age of 11. Their academic career and earning potential for the rest of their lives hangs in the balance at this moment.

And that is a tragedy, because we routinely see exactly these children learn to read in a matter of weeks. They have no underlying reason not to be able to read. They are just going about it the wrong way.

The label dyslexic carries a great risk that everyone will just relax into acceptance of the situation as inevitable. That leaves the child to deal with a much harder path through life.