bring up the Control Center from the lock screen, press and hold the flashlight icon until the brightness interface appears and adjust the brightness.
Use and customize Control Center on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support
if that fails
reboot the device from a cold restart
if that fails to remedy the issue reset the device to defaults
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201252
if you still cant get it to work you may want to bring it into an Apple Store for a diagnostic.