Home Education Ideas and Resources for Dyslexia
Welcome to my Home Education Resources and Ideas page — created especially for home educating families in the UK.
As both a home educating parent of a child with dyslexia, ADHD and autism and a specialist dyslexia assessor and tutor, I understand first hand how to support neurodivergent children in a home learning environment.
Training as a specialist teacher taught me how the brain of a child with dyslexia learns best, and having my own son assessed for dyslexia showed me exactly how his individual brain likes to learn. That insight allows me to plan hands on, memorable activities and games that truly engage him, and that same approach can help other home educated learners too.
Many children with dyslexia have a strength in visualising and their main difficulty often lies in processing the sounds they hear. This means that when teaching reading and spelling — both of which rely on sound processing — it’s essential to build on their visual strengths. Plan games and activities that involve the child hearing the word, seeing the word and saying the word. This multi-sensory approach helps information stick by creating a memorable anchor in the long-term memory.
This page is here to share practical, hands-on ideas and games to help your child practise and strengthen their literacy skills — through play, repetition and creativity.
LEGO Spelling
Hidden word: Use to teach tricky words hidden inside another, e.g. here ->where. It teaches two words at a time.
I bought my flat LEGO tiles from here: Lego Pick a Brick
Build and Write: Build the word using the tiles and write the focus word-one letter per tile.
Handwriting/letter formation: use 1x1 square tiles for 'short' letters (a, m, r etc.), and a 1 x 2 rectangular tiles for tall letters (l, d, t etc.) and tail letters (p, g, y etc.)
Sound swap: Make 'pine' and swap the 'p' for 'm' to make 'mine.
Sentence building: Different colour tiles represent a different part of the sentence, e.g. The cat jumped could be orange (The cat) and blue (jumped). This can link to Colourful Semantics.
Prefixes and Suffixes: Use the same colour for both as they do the same job-add to a base word to change the meaning. Helpful for teaching the suffixes that change the base word (the ones that start with a vowel, e.g. ing, ed, er).
More resources and ideas....
Mnemonics - AKA funny phrases with a picture that help us remember something!
Sometimes, a funny phrase or image makes all the difference — for example, remembering “was” with “Kai Was A Sausage” worked brilliantly for one child. The beauty of home education is that everything can be individualised so mnemonics can be made around whatever they currently love- Lego Ninjago, animals, Minecraft.
The Power of Play
Play is such a powerful way to learn — something beautifully explored by Naomi Fisher, founder of East Kent Sudbury, who writes about how play fosters curiosity, motivation and deep understanding. I love creating and playing learning games — and my children do too! They’ve become brilliant at inventing their own, proving just how naturally learning can grow through play.
Dyslexia East Kent Support provide information and resources to people with dyslexia, enabling them to reach their full potential. Their team of specialist advisors guides people to find the information they need and supports them to access further resources.
Drop in centre: Free sessions held one Saturday per month from 2 pm – 4 pm at
Dyslexia East Kent Support provide information and resources to people with dyslexia, enabling them to reach their full potential. Their team of specialist advisors guides people to find the information they need and supports them to access further resources.
Drop in centre: Free sessions held one Saturday per month from 2 pm – 4 pm at Reculver and Beltinge Memorial Hall, 149 Reculver Road, Herne Bay, CT6 6PL.
Click to follow link to find out more: Dyslexia East Kent Support