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A study published in the current Neurology shows fMRI changes in dyslexic subjects after only 28 hours of comprehensive reading instruction. The authors developed specialized tasks to detect "brain activation during phoneme mapping (assigning sounds to letters) and morpheme mapping (understanding the relationship of suffixed words to their roots)." Both children with dyslexia and normal readers performed these tasks during fMRI scanning. 
Study results showed that prior to treatment, children with dyslexia showed less activation than controls in left middle and inferior frontal gyri, right superior frontal gyrus, left middle and inferior temporal gyri, and bilateral superior parietal regions for phoneme mapping. In addition, activation was significantly reduced for children with dyslexia on the initial morpheme mapping scan in left middle frontal gyrus, right superior parietal, and fusiform/occipital region. The dyslexic children in this study had above average intelligence but scored approximately 30 percent lower than average on standard reading tests.
Treatment was clearly associated with improved reading scores and increased brain activation during both tasks, "such that quantity and pattern of activation for children with dyslexia after treatment closely resembled that of controls."
In a related article, researchers discuss an introduction to the process of brain activation when applied to reading assessment and treatment. There is also a brief primer on dyslexia that points out that 'about 15 to 20% of the population has a language-based learning disability. Of the students with learning disabilities who receive special education services at school, 70 to 80% have problems with reading. This makes dyslexia the most common learning disability. Dyslexia affects boys and girls nearly equally. It is seen in people from all ethnic groups and socio-economic levels as well.'
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