Local governments endlessly talk about “workforce development,” as if the only thing standing between a struggling city and a thriving one is another grant-funded training program. But walk into any employment office or job fair and the real problem becomes apparent: workforce systems are built for a population that reads accurately and quickly, moves through information in a straight line, and never hesitates over a form.
Dyslexia is a reading difference that makes reading, spelling, and decoding difficult. A significant share of adults in every community live with dyslexia or other learning differences. National estimates put dyslexia somewhere between 5% and 20% of the population. Research shows many adults with dyslexia never receive a diagnosis. Apply those numbers in Niagara County, and you are looking at roughly 10,000-40,000 people.
Dyslexia is not rare, and for many, it doesn’t vanish after high school graduation. The problem isn’t a lack of intelligence. Dyslexic adults are smart and capable. However, adults who struggled to read fluently as children and never received proper reading support in school carry those same challenges into the workforce.
Undiagnosed dyslexic adults have difficulty navigating text-heavy systems that assume fluent literacy.
Take voter registration. The form is text-dense, instructions are written in bureaucratic language, and the process requires accurate reading, writing, or typing for online applications. Under New York law, anyone who helps must sign as an assistant, and the applicant must personally attest to every answer. Registration volunteers can read the form aloud, explain the fields on the form, and write information as dictated by the voter.
For an adult who has spent a lifetime avoiding situations where reading is on display, the safest choice is often to just opt out. Lower voter turnout among adults with reading challenges isn’t simply a matter of apathy.
The same challenge shows up in schools. Many districts now rely on parent portals—password-protected systems filled with long messages, multi-step menus, and alerts that require reading accuracy. For a dyslexic parent, these electronic systems are digital obstacles. Some struggle to navigate the portal while others misread dates or instructions. Some may avoid responding because typing a message back feels like a test they’re destined to fail. They carry the shame of their own school experiences and stay away entirely.
Teachers and administrators interpret this silence as disengagement when in reality, it’s avoidance rooted in literacy challenges.
It’s also recognizable in the labor market. Adults who don’t read fluently tend to seek jobs that minimize reading demands: dishwashing and bussing in food service, janitorial or housekeeping jobs, or landscaping work. People don’t seek these roles because they match their potential. They’re chosen because the duties require minimal to no reading and written communication.
Workforce development opportunities and programs built on written manuals, online portals, and multi-step forms replicate the same barriers undiagnosed dyslexic adults have been navigating since childhood.
Adult-literacy nonprofits like Literacy Buffalo Niagara (LBN) don’t have the funding or authority to provide formal dyslexia assessments, and this is where their best intentions fall short. As a Basic Literacy tutor, I’ve seen it firsthand. We can try to help adults learn to read, but we can’t tell them why they’ve been struggling. The very organizations trying to support adult learners have no way to identify dyslexia, leaving adult students with an undiagnosed reading difference and no path to the clarity they need to move forward.
New York has introduced statewide dyslexia-screening bills for pre-K and elementary school students. Both died in committee. If our own state legislators can’t even pass a basic requirement for children, what hope do adults have of ever getting identified at all? What does the future workforce look like?
People don’t always disengage because they don’t care. When childhood reading instruction fails, adult participation collapses. Claims to support economic growth, strong schools, or a healthy democracy are meaningless until we address the literacy crisis in children and adults. Local governments and employers should take an interest in affordable and accessible ways for adults to find out whether dyslexia is the reason they’ve been struggling all along.
Until governments, employers, schools, and literacy organizations make dyslexia identification accessible, they’re being inattentive and undermining their own economic goals. Until adults’ reading realities are addressed, workforce development initiatives will continue to struggle to serve the population that avoids job fairs, voter registration tables, or parent portals.
As long as adults have no affordable and accessible dyslexia-screening options, every training program and civic process will keep missing people who make up a significant share of Niagara County. As long as children endure reading challenges that are never named, never screened, and never supported, the workforce pipeline will continue to be built on guesswork, never reaching the people who need it most.