Why Breaking Down a Question Can Help Dyslexic Learners

A learner can know the subject. They can understand what they have been taught. They may even be able to explain it confidently in conversation.

Then they see an exam question and do not know where to start.

For some dyslexic learners, the difficulty is not necessarily a lack of knowledge. The challenge can be working out exactly what the question is asking while also retrieving information, organising ideas and preparing to write.

One strategy I regularly teach is very simple.

Before answering a question, ask:

• •What is the command word?
• •What is the instruction?
• •What is the key term?

These three questions encourage the learner to stop and unpack the task before beginning their answer.

Why can questions feel difficult?

An exam or classroom question may look like a single task. In reality, the learner may need to do several things almost simultaneously.

They need to read the question accurately. They then need to understand the vocabulary, identify what they are being asked to do and retrieve the relevant knowledge. After this, they need to decide which information matters and organise it into an appropriate response.

Only then can they begin writing.

For some dyslexic learners, this can place considerable demand on areas such as working memory, processing speed, reading fluency and written organisation.

This does not mean that every dyslexic learner will experience these difficulties. Dyslexia presents differently from person to person. However, reducing the number of things a learner needs to manage at once can be helpful.

Breaking the question down is one way of doing this.

1. What is the command word?

The first thing to identify is the command word.

This tells the learner what they are expected to do with their knowledge.

Common examples include describe, explain, compare, analyse, discuss, evaluate and identify.

Knowing the topic is not enough.

A learner could know a great deal about a subject but still lose marks because they have described something when the question asked them to explain it.

Highlighting or underlining the command word gives the learner an immediate starting point.

What type of answer am I being asked to produce?

2. What is the instruction?

Next, look at the instruction.

This is the part of the question that tells the learner what they need to do.

For example: Explain two reasons why…

The command word is explain.

However, the instruction also tells us something important. The learner needs two reasons.

That information can immediately begin to shape the answer.

Rather than facing an open-ended writing task, the learner now knows:

• •I need reason one + explanation.
• •I need reason two + explanation.

The task has already become smaller and more manageable.

3. What is the key term?

Finally, identify the key term or topic.

What is this question actually about?

This helps the learner focus their knowledge retrieval.

A student may know a large amount about a topic. The question rarely requires all of it.

Identifying the key term helps them ask:

What do I know that is relevant to this particular question?

This can be especially useful for learners who generate lots of ideas but find it difficult to decide which information is important.

This can be especially useful for learners who generate lots of ideas but find it difficult to decide which information is important.

Putting the three questions together

Imagine the question:

Explain two reasons why people migrate from rural areas to cities.

Rather than immediately starting to write, break it down.

• •Command word: explain.
• •Instruction: give two reasons and explain each one.
• •Key terms: migration from rural areas to cities.

The learner can now think:

• •Reason 1 → employment opportunities → explain why this encourages migration.
• •Reason 2 → access to services → explain why this encourages migration.

Before a sentence has been written, the structure of the answer is beginning to appear.

Why might this work particularly well for a dyslexic learner?

The important principle is reducing cognitive load.

Writing an answer involves many processes. A learner may be thinking about what they know, what comes next, how to spell a word, how to structure a sentence and whether they have actually answered the question.

Trying to manage all of this at once can be demanding.

Breaking down the question allows some decisions to be made before the learner begins writing.

Instead of holding the whole question in mind, they have three clearer pieces of information:

• •What am I doing?
• •How much or what type of response do I need?
• •What am I writing about?

This provides an external structure rather than relying entirely on the learner holding and manipulating the information mentally.

Highlighting can help, but keep it simple

Some learners find colour useful.

For example, they might use one colour for the command word, another for the instruction and another for the key term.

However, the purpose is not to produce a beautifully colour-coded question.

The purpose is to make the question easier to understand.

If three colours become another thing to remember, simply circling, boxing or underlining the important words may work better.

The strategy should reduce demand, not create more of it.

Understanding the question is only the first step

Once the learner has broken down the question, there is another important stage:

Do not necessarily start writing immediately.

Instead, make a brief plan.

This can feel counterintuitive. A learner who already feels that writing takes them longer may think: Why would I spend even more time planning?

However, a short plan can actually make the writing stage easier.

The learner has already decided what the question wants. Planning allows them to decide what they are going to say and in what order.

It moves some of the thinking out of the writing process.

This can be particularly valuable for a learner who knows what they want to say but finds that their ideas become muddled once they start writing.

A useful routine

The whole process can become:

READ → BREAK IT DOWN → PLAN → WRITE → CHECK

At first, a teacher or parent may need to model this explicitly.

Ask the learner:

• •What is the command word?
• •What is the instruction?
• •What is the key term?

Then ask:

What are your main points going to be?

With practice, this can become a routine that the learner uses more independently. For more ideas at home, see practical homework strategies that actually help.

The aim is not to make the work easier

Breaking down a question does not remove the academic challenge.

The learner still needs the knowledge. They still need to understand the subject and construct an appropriate answer.

What the strategy does is make the demands of the task more visible.

For a dyslexic learner, that distinction can be important.

Sometimes the barrier is not: “I don't know this.”

It is: “I know this, but I don't know how to organise everything I need to do with it.”

Teaching learners how to unpack a question gives them a practical way forward.

And sometimes, spending a minute working out exactly what the question wants can save several minutes trying to rescue an answer that started in the wrong direction.