Although usually defined as a learning disorder that is specific to reading, dyslexia reflects natural variations in neurological processing of the visual form of words and their associated sounds. Recent advances in neuroscience show that in learning to read we ‘reuse’ parts of the brain that are initially involved in face and object recognition. This way of thinking about reading may help de-emphasise dyslexia as a ‘disability’ while furthering our ability to support students for whom reading is challenging.