ADHD and Reading Comprehension: Connection Between ADHD and Learning

For many individuals, understanding the connection between ADHD and reading comprehension is key to unlocking better learning outcomes. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder often disrupts how the brain processes and integrates information, leading to comprehension issues such as drifting off between lines, rereading sections, and missing the main idea. These challenges can make even simple reading tasks feel frustrating and exhausting.

In this article, you’ll learn how ADHD affects reading comprehension, why these difficulties occur, and what evidence-based strategies can help. Verdant Psychology’s team of licensed psychologists specializes in comprehensive ADHD testing and personalized learning assessments designed to empower individuals with clear answers, targeted support, and practical next steps toward stronger reading and comprehension skills.

Understanding ADHD and Its Impact on Learning

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by a persistent pattern of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. These symptoms can manifest differently across individuals, impacting their ability to focus, sustain attention, organize tasks, and regulate emotions. According to NIH, ADHD often involves executive function deficits affecting focus, planning, and emotional control.

The disorder is commonly diagnosed in childhood but often continues into adulthood, affecting academic performance and daily life activities. Understanding ADHD’s core traits, especially attention deficit and executive function impairments, is critical to grasping its effect on learning and reading comprehension.

Types of ADHD and Their Learning Effects

There are three main presentations of ADHD, each influencing learning and reading comprehension differently:

• Primarily Inattentive Type: Characterized by difficulty sustaining focus, following instructions, and organizing information, often leading to comprehension challenges during reading.

• Primarily Hyperactive-Impulsive Type: Involves restlessness, fidgeting, and impulsive behavior, which can interrupt reading flow and reduce sustained attention.

• Combined Type: Includes both inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms, creating compounded difficulties in focus, comprehension, and overall learning performance.

How Attention Deficit Influences Focus

A main challenge for people with ADHD is staying focused. Trouble paying attention makes it hard to keep concentrate while reading, causing distractions and rereading. This broken focus makes it harder to connect ideas and understand the whole passage clearly.

Executive Function and ADHD Challenges

Executive functions are cognitive processes that help plan, organize, and regulate behavior. In ADHD readers, executive dysfunction often results in difficulties sequencing ideas, monitoring understanding while reading, and inhibiting distractions. These challenges further complicate the ability to process text effectively.

Emotional Regulation in Learning with ADHD

ADHD also affects emotional regulation, where frustration or anxiety around reading tasks can develop from repeated failures to comprehend text. This can lead to avoidance of reading tasks, impacting skill development and overall academic confidence.

What is Reading Comprehension?

Reading comprehension involves more than just decoding words. It is the ability to derive meaning from text by understanding, analyzing, and integrating the information presented. Strong comprehension requires a mix of decoding accuracy, vocabulary knowledge, memory retention, and attention. According to ScienceDirect, reading comprehension is the process of simultaneously constructing and extracting meaning through interaction and engagement with print.

Components: Decoding vs. Understanding

Decoding is the ability to correctly recognize and pronounce words, whereas comprehension is understanding what those words mean in context. People with ADHD often decode adequately but struggle with the latter due to deficits in attention and executive function.

Role of Vocabulary and Prior Knowledge

A robust vocabulary and relevant background knowledge boost comprehension by helping readers make connections between ideas, predict outcomes, and infer deeper meanings. ADHD readers may face challenges in these areas if attention difficulties lead to missed learning opportunities.

How Working Memory Supports Comprehension

Working memory holds information temporarily for processing while reading. It allows readers to remember sentences while continuing to read, making sense of the passage as a whole. ADHD can impair working memory, disrupting smooth comprehension. 

Types of Comprehension Skills

Comprehension includes three key skill areas that work together to create meaning from text:

• Literal Understanding: Grasping exactly what the text states, such as facts, details, and main ideas.

• Inferential Reasoning: Interpreting implied meanings by reading between the lines and connecting ideas.

• Evaluative Judgment: Critically assessing the text’s quality, purpose, and logic to form personal conclusions.

The Link Between ADHD and Comprehension Issues

One of the core reasons individuals with ADHD struggle with reading comprehension is distractibility. When attention drifts, important details slip by unnoticed, fragmenting the reader’s understanding and requiring frequent backtracking through the text. This breaks the “flow” of reading and prevents building a coherent mental model.

1. Difficulty Integrating Text Information

Readers with ADHD often process sentences correctly but have trouble synthesizing these into a cohesive whole. This leads to ineffective reading comprehension, where understanding the passage’s main idea and connecting concepts is challenging. 

2. Sustained Attention and Reading Fatigue

Staying focused for a long time while reading can be tiring for people with ADHD. This mental fatigue slows understanding and makes it harder to remember what was read. Research shows that reduced focus over time often leads to weaker comprehension on longer passages.

3. Why ADHD Symptoms Mimic Reading Disorders

ADHD reading problems closely resemble symptoms of traditional reading disorders. However, the root cause in ADHD is typically attention deficit and executive dysfunction, not decoding or phonological processing deficits. This distinction is critical for choosing effective interventions. 

4. Impaired Working Memory and Comprehension

Working memory deficits in ADHD reduce the ability to hold and process earlier sentences while reading new ones. This weakens integration of meaning and increases comprehension breakdowns, especially in complex texts that require multiple-step reasoning.

5. Processing Speed Slows Reading and Understanding

Slower processing speed seen in many people with ADHD means decoding and internal “translation” of words to meaning takes longer. This slower pace increases risk of attention lapsing and reduces the brain’s ability to keep pace with comprehension demands. 

6. Mind-wandering During Reading and Its Effects

Frequent mind-wandering is common in ADHD and disrupts reading comprehension. When attention shifts to unrelated thoughts, the mental model of the text fragments and retention suffers. This reduces the ability to understand the “big picture” of a passage.

Common Comprehension Difficulties in ADHD Readers

Many people with ADHD experience specific patterns of difficulty when reading, even if they understand individual words or sentences. These challenges often appear in how they focus, remember details, and organize ideas while trying to make sense of what they read.

1. Rereading and Its Cognitive Impact

Frequent rereading caused by distraction drains mental energy and slows comprehension. Each restart forces the reader to reprocess familiar content, disrupting flow and reducing motivation. Over time, this habit reinforces frustration with reading, especially for individuals with ADHD who already struggle with attention control and working memory efficiency.

2. Trouble Following Multi-Step Instructions

ADHD readers often find multi-step written instructions difficult to follow. Gaps in sustained attention and working memory make it challenging to keep track of each step while transitioning between tasks. This difficulty extends beyond reading comprehension, affecting classroom activities, workplace performance, and daily routines requiring sequence management.

3. Challenges Summarizing and Retaining Ideas

Summarizing means picking out the main points, skipping extra details, and remembering key ideas. For people with ADHD, these steps can feel broken or unclear. Trouble keeping information in mind makes it harder to understand and explain what was read.

4. Impact on Academic Confidence

Repeated trouble understanding what’s read can lower confidence in students and adults with ADHD. Each difficult reading experience builds frustration and doubt, making them less willing to try. Over time, this can lead to avoiding reading, participating less, and falling behind in school or work.

5. Executive Function Deficits in Reading

Executive function skills organize thoughts, manage attention, and monitor understanding. When these systems lag, as they often do in ADHD, readers lose track of ideas, overlook key connections, or fail to notice confusion. This weakens comprehension and impedes learning across all subjects requiring complex text analysis.

ADHD Reading Problems in Adults

ADHD affects adults in ways that often go unnoticed, especially when it comes to reading and understanding complex information. Many find it challenging to stay focused, manage distractions, and keep up with demanding reading tasks at work or in daily life.

Challenges with Professional Reading

Adults with ADHD often find long or technical materials, such as manuals, reports, or policies, difficult to follow. These tasks require sustained focus and organization of complex ideas, which can be hard to maintain, reducing reading accuracy and overall understanding in professional or academic settings.

Managing Distractions in Adult Environments

Workplaces and homes often have distractions that make reading harder for adults with ADHD. Noise, multitasking, or digital interruptions reduce focus and comprehension, forcing rereading or incomplete understanding of information needed for job performance or important personal responsibilities.

Strategies Adults Use to Cope

Many adults with ADHD create ways to manage reading challenges, such as note-taking, reading aloud, or using text-to-speech tools. These methods help maintain attention, support memory, and make it easier to process and remember what they read.

When to Seek Assessment as an Adult

Ongoing struggles with reading and comprehension may signal ADHD. Adults who often reread, lose focus, or forget what they’ve read can benefit from a professional evaluation, which provides clarity, an accurate diagnosis, and personalized strategies for better focus and understanding.

Differentiating ADHD from Reading Disabilities

Reading disabilities involve specific challenges that interfere with how a person processes written language. These difficulties are distinct from attention-based problems seen in ADHD and focus on the technical side of reading:

• Decoding Difficulties: Trouble translating written symbols (letters) into sounds or words.

• Word Recognition Problems: Struggling to identify familiar words automatically, slowing reading speed.

• Phonological Processing Deficits: Difficulty hearing and manipulating individual sounds in words, which affects spelling and fluency.

• Dyslexia as the Most Common Form: A learning disorder that impacts reading accuracy, fluency, and spelling consistency.

• Difference from ADHD: While ADHD affects focus and executive function, reading disabilities target the mechanics and structure of reading itself.

Key Differences: Decoding vs. Attention

Individuals with ADHD usually have no significant problems decoding words and reading aloud. Instead, their reading struggles stem from difficulty sustaining attention and integrating information. People with reading disabilities have core difficulties with decoding that impede fluency and comprehension at the word level.

Co-occurrence of ADHD and Dyslexia

It is common for ADHD to co-occur with reading disabilities. When both conditions exist, individuals may experience compounded challenges, including poor word reading alongside comprehension issues caused by distractibility and executive function deficits. Accurate diagnosis is essential to tailor support effectively.

Importance of Accurate Diagnosis

Distinguishing ADHD-related reading problems from reading disorders requires thorough assessment by trained professionals. Misdiagnosis can lead to ineffective interventions because strategies for ADHD, focusing on attention and executive skills, differ from those aimed at decoding and phonological deficits.

Role of Working Memory and Processing Speed in Reading

Working Memory’s Role in Reading Comprehension

Working memory allows readers to hold and process information while continuing through a passage. ADHD readers often have reduced working memory capacity, making it hard to maintain key information, track plot lines, or grasp complex explanations as they read.

Processing Speed and Reading Fluency

Processing speed refers to how quickly the brain interprets and responds to information. Slower processing speed in ADHD can reduce fluency, requiring more effort to decode and comprehend text, which increases the likelihood of attention drift and fatigue.

Strategies for Supporting Memory

Deficits in working memory and processing speed can be tackled by breaking reading into manageable chunks, encouraging note-taking, and using visual aids or outlines. These support strategies help ADHD readers maintain focus and organize information during reading.

Reading Skills Development and ADHD

Early Literacy Challenges

Children with ADHD often face early struggles with reading due to inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. These symptoms impact their ability to practice and consolidate reading skills with consistent focus.

Impact of Limited Vocabulary

Attention issues may cause children with ADHD to miss opportunities to build robust vocabularies. Because vocabulary strongly supports comprehension, gaps here further complicate reading development.

Phonological Processing Issues in ADHD

While not a primary feature, some children with ADHD may experience overlapping phonological processing difficulties, affecting their decoding and reading accuracy.

Importance of Monitoring Reading Progress

Regular assessment of reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary development is critical for children with ADHD to identify challenges early and provide intervention before gaps widen.

Effects of ADHD on Reading Intervention Outcomes

Why Typical Interventions May Fall Short

Standard reading interventions often focus on decoding and fluency without addressing attention and executive function deficits present in ADHD. This limits their effectiveness for ADHD readers with comprehension issues.

Addressing Executive Functions in Support

Reading interventions for ADHD should incorporate components that improve planning, working memory, and inhibitory control to aid in maintaining focus and organizing text information.

Combining ADHD Treatment with Reading Help

Medication and behavioral treatments for ADHD can significantly enhance the effectiveness of reading interventions by improving attention and cognitive processing.

Using Technology to Aid Reading

Assistive technologies such as text-to-speech, audiobooks, and distraction-reducing apps offer valuable support to ADHD readers, making interventions more accessible and manageable.

Executive Function and Its Role in Reading

Planning and Organizing Text Information

Executive function skills enable readers to sequence ideas, organize mental representations, and follow the flow of a text. When individuals with ADHD struggle in this domain, they may jump between disconnected ideas or fail to build logical understanding, which impairs comprehension and recall. 

Cognitive Flexibility for Comprehension

Cognitive flexibility allows the reader to shift among concepts, adapt to new information, and infer meaning beyond literal text. ADHD readers often experience rigidity or get “stuck” on earlier ideas, making inferences and transitions harder. This limits deeper comprehension and analytical reading. 

Inhibitory Control and Focus

Inhibitory control is the ability to suppress distractions or irrelevant thoughts while reading. Poor inhibitory regulation, common in ADHD, leads to drifting off between lines, losing track of the passage, and requiring rereading. This slows comprehension and reduces retention. 

Self-Monitoring and Regulation in Reading

Effective reading involves continuous self-monitoring: asking “Do I understand this?”, noticing confusion, and rereading when necessary. Many ADHD readers struggle with regulation of their comprehension process, so they may continue reading without realizing meaning has slipped. That erodes learning and retention. 

Planning Ahead and Previewing Text

Previewing text (headings, subheadings, visuals) helps create a roadmap of what’s ahead and primes comprehension. ADHD readers who bypass this step may start reading without an organizing framework, making the mental task heavier and comprehension weaker. 

Chunking Information and Sequencing

Breaking text into meaningful “chunks” or segments and sequencing them logically supports comprehension and reduces cognitive overload. For ADHD readers, chunking helps manage executive demand and supports better integration of ideas. 

Reading with Purpose and Reflection

Readers who set a purpose (e.g., “I will find three key points”) and reflect periodically (“What did I just read?”) activate executive regulation and metacognition. ADHD readers benefit from prompts and checkpoints to maintain comprehension and awareness of their reading progress.

Supporting Children with ADHD and Comprehension Difficulties

Classroom Strategies and Accommodations

Children with ADHD benefit from accommodations such as preferential seating to minimize distractions, frequent breaks, and clear, concise instructions to support attention during reading activities.

Multi-sensory Learning Approaches

Incorporating visual aids, hands-on activities, and auditory supports can engage multiple senses, helping children with ADHD anchor their attention and enhance comprehension.

Role of Parents in Reading Support

Parents play an important role by establishing quiet reading routines, encouraging reading aloud, and helping children summarize passages to build comprehension and confidence.

Collaboration for Effective Intervention

Effective reading support involves collaboration between teachers, speech-language pathologists, and psychologists to tailor interventions that address each child’s unique needs and learning profiles.

Support for ADHD Reading Problems in Adults

Workplace Accommodations

Adults with ADHD can request accommodations such as quieter spaces, noise-canceling headphones, flexible deadlines, or reading materials in audio or large-print formats. These adjustments are legally protected and can significantly improve focus and comprehension in professional settings. 

Reading Tools and Technology

Software like text-to-speech programs, audiobooks, digital highlighters, and smart note-taking apps help adults with ADHD manage comprehension difficulties. By reducing visual distractions and supporting memory, these tools let readers focus more on meaning than mechanics. 

Focus and Time Management Techniques

Breaking reading tasks into short, timed chunks, using timers or “focus blocks,” and reading during times of best alertness help adults with ADHD maintain attention. Scheduling regular micro-breaks prevents fatigue and improves comprehension over longer sessions.

Accessing Professional Coaching

ADHD coaching and therapy offer adults practical strategies for organizing reading materials, building routines, improving executive function, and enhancing comprehension. Personalized, ongoing support helps transfer skills into real-life reading tasks and workplace demands.

Alternate Reading Formats

Using alternative formats, like audiobooks, e-readers with adjustable text, or interactive reading apps, lets adults with ADHD engage with material in more digestible ways. These formats reduce cognitive load and enhance comprehension. 

Environment Design for Better Reading

Designing a reading environment that minimizes clutter, ambient noise, and unexpected interruptions supports sustained reading for adults with ADHD. A dedicated, calm space enhances attention and reduces the likelihood of rereading the same passage. 

Self-Monitoring and Progress Tracking

Tracking reading progress, noting how often comprehension breaks occur, and adjusting strategies accordingly empower adults with ADHD. Self-monitoring aids metacognition, which supports better reading habits and continuous improvement.

ADHD Treatment and Improvement in Reading Comprehension

How Medication Supports Attention

Medications for ADHD improve neurotransmitter function, enhancing sustained attention, working memory, and executive control, key factors for improving reading comprehension.

Behavioral Therapy and Reading Skills

Therapies such as cognitive-behavioral therapy teach coping mechanisms and self-regulation strategies, helping individuals manage distractibility and executive dysfunction during reading.

ADHD Coaching for Readers

Coaches provide strategies for organizing reading materials, setting goals, and using assistive technologies effectively, empowering ADHD readers to build skills.

Monitoring Treatment Effectiveness

Regular evaluation of reading progress post-treatment helps adjust strategies to maximize gains in comprehension and fluency for ADHD individuals.

Signs to Monitor: When to Seek Assessment

Recognizing the signs of ADHD-related reading difficulties early can make a big difference in learning and confidence. These signs often appear as patterns of distraction, forgetfulness, or frustration while reading, not a lack of ability, but challenges linked to focus and attention.

• Frequent Rereading and Losing Focus: Often, rereading lines or losing your place while reading may signal attention difficulties related to ADHD rather than a reading skill issue.

• Trouble Remembering What Was Read: Forgetting details or main ideas shortly after reading can indicate working memory challenges common in ADHD.

• Drifting Off or Daydreaming Mid-Reading: Zoning out between sentences makes it difficult to connect ideas and understand the overall meaning of a passage.

• Avoidance of Reading Tasks: Putting off reading assignments or losing motivation for long materials may reflect frustration from focus and attention struggles.

• Frustration or Anxiety While Reading: Feeling tense or discouraged during reading often shows that the mental effort required for focus and comprehension feels overwhelming.

Empowering ADHD Readers Through Understanding and Support

ADHD and reading comprehension challenges often stem from differences in attention, working memory, and processing speed. Understanding this link can turn frustration into awareness and lead to more effective learning strategies.

Verdant Psychology’s licensed clinicians provide ADHD testing and personalized learning assessments to identify what affects focus and comprehension. Through evidence-based guidance and tailored support, individuals can improve reading skills and regain confidence. If you or your child struggles to stay engaged while reading, schedule an ADHD assessment with us today.

Frequently Asked Questions

What causes reading comprehension issues in ADHD?

Reading comprehension problems in ADHD often arise from distractibility, working memory deficits, and poor executive function, impacting the ability to focus and integrate information effectively.

How do ADHD reading problems adults differ from children?

Adults with ADHD often read more complex materials for work or study, which demand greater focus and comprehension. While many develop coping strategies, they still experience attention-based difficulties that affect how efficiently they read, retain information, and integrate ideas compared to children.

Can ADHD be mistaken for a reading disorder?

Yes, ADHD comprehension difficulties can mimic reading disabilities, but ADHD generally involves intact decoding with attention and executive dysfunction, which has effects on comprehension struggles.

What interventions help with ADHD-related comprehension difficulties?

Effective interventions combine ADHD treatment, executive function support, reading strategies, assistive technology, and individualized educational accommodations.

How can working memory affect reading in ADHD?

Working memory deficits hinder the ability to hold and process information during reading, causing trouble with understanding, recall, and connecting ideas.