You sit down at the kitchen table, pull up a chair, and watch your child fly through a page of text. They pronounce the multi-syllable words correctly, navigate the punctuation, and close the book with a sigh of relief. But the moment you look at them and gently ask, "What happened in that story?" — the room goes completely quiet. They look at you blankly. They aren't faking it. They aren't trying to be difficult or lazy. They genuinely, truly do not know. If you have watched

You've tried the tutor. You've tried the movement breaks. Each helped a little — then the gains disappeared. You're not missing effort. You're missing a plan built for both. ADHD and dyslexia co-occur in up to 45% of cases. When both are present, the challenges aren't additive — they're multiplicative. Here's why, and three tools you can start tonight.

Your child reads the passage. You ask what it was about. They stare at you. Not because they weren't paying attention — because their brain processes information differently, and passive reading doesn't give it anything to hold onto. Here are four visual annotation strategies that change that: text mapping, color-coded sticky notes, GIST summaries, and sketchnotes. No tutoring required.