Homeschooling a Dyslexic Child for their Strengths

This post may contain affiliate links or products received with compensation. My opinions are always my own. I may also earn a small commission when you click on the links on this page at no additional cost to you.

All of my kids have seemed a little atypical from the beginning, in one way or another. I wasn’t exactly surprised, when we had them evaluated for learning disabilities, to discover that each child had one, but I was surprised to discover that each child had a different one.  Life doesn’t seem to ever be simple, does it? Nope, they each had to be different in one more way.  For my youngest it was dyslexia and we wondered when he wasn’t reading as soon as his siblings did. I didn’t realize all his tower building as a toddler also pointed to being dyslexic. Learning more about the strengths of it made me glad we are homeschooling our dyslexic child.

Dyslexia is the most widely studied of the 3 “Dys” learning disabilities.  Most commonly you hear about dyslexia being a learning disability with reading, but it is so much more than that.  Scientists have even discovered that it is a different brain wiring not unlike the Autism Spectrum. It wasn’t until after the industrial revolution when reading became a dominant learning method in public classrooms that it was seen as a learning disability. Prior to that, most learning happened through experience and verbal instruction as children assisted their parents in daily life.  Vocational training was commonly done in apprenticeships, with hands-on learning.  The differences of dyslexia were not seen as weaknesses, because reading was generally not a necessity to learn.  Hands-on and project-based education is still how many dyslexics learn best. It’s one reason I am working to do more hands-on learning as I am homeschooling our dyslexic child.  

Strengths of Dyslexia

I must confess, I didn’t know much about Dyslexia before testing confirmed my suspicion that my child had it.  My early signs were the typical trouble learning to read and letter flipping when writing.  My 8-year-old child still flips his letters to this day, but we don’t make a big deal about it.  It wasn’t until I read The Dyslexic Advantage that I saw how other parts of his personality also pointed to dyslexia that had nothing to do with reading.  He had all the strengths that the book discussed.  He is a creative thinker and has an engineering mind.  That engineering mind is what we took note of when he was a toddler.  He loved to build with blocks and still does.  But even as a toddler, everything he built was structurally sound.  He never built a tower that fell over because it was unbalanced.  

One of our trips to the local science center he built a tower with cardboard bricks.  He got frustrated when he couldn’t add any more to the top because the tower was taller than he was, and it hadn’t fallen over yet!  The student volunteers were also impressed watching his project.  I had no idea these early engineering skills might be related to a learning disability.  

The creative arts and storytelling strength area is referred to as Narrative Reasoning in The Dyslexic Advantage.  This strength was interesting to me as we most commonly associate Dyslexia with struggling to read and write, and yet many great storytellers are dyslexic. Several successful authors and storytellers are  Dyslexic including Steven Spielberg,  Avi, Agatha Christie, and children’s author Patricia Polacco.  Their creative minds are able to connect the threads of a story together to share them with us.  For my child he struggles to put his stories down on paper but when I volunteer to write or type it for him he creates the most creative stories.  By removing the “can’t” from his writing process when I am his scribe, he is unrestricted in expressing his creativity.  He has created a whole imaginative world for his stuffed animals complete with a history and relationship with other nearby kingdoms (his siblings’ stuffed animal collections)

Dyslexic people are more commonly found in four main career areas based on their strengths: Architecture, Engineering, Entrepreneurship or the Arts.  These four career areas all value the strengths of a dyslexic, and when homeschooling a dyslexic child you can work to strengthen these skills as you help them find their passions and interests. .  

Struggles of Dyslexia

While his strengths are obvious and they lead him to want to be a builder when he grows up, my child still melts in a puddle when he gets frustrated with schoolwork.  In addition to reading, Dyslexic minds often struggle with other aspects of language creation and production, so forming letters when writing by hand and organizing their thoughts on paper and when speaking can be a struggle.  Letter flipping when writing in print is a common occurrence for my students.  I know of many dyslexic homeschoolers who choose to teach cursive handwriting before print because the connected letters help prevent letter reversals.  

Children with dyslexia have trouble identifying speech sounds and attaching them to the words or letters as another aspect of their language processing.  It shows up practically as trouble learning to read as a child but has no relation to a person’s intelligence.   Working to isolate struggling skills from other learning is a privilege of homeschooling.  When you are homeschooling a dyslexic child you can be creative with their assignments.  Doing things like separating the act of handwriting from the process of storytelling by acting as your child’s scribe during written assignments or accepting their answers verbally instead of in writing is one strategy.  Using audiobooks to listen to great literature while the reading skills come slower can help children stay motivated to read it for themselves later.  Introducing technology aids like typing and dictation programs can help encourage your creative students and foster independence. 

Homeschooling a Dyslexic Child

Homeschooling a dyslexic child is valuable because you can follow their lead in their areas of weakness and also make accommodations naturally so their learning isn’t slowed.  There are a variety of homeschool curriculum options available to help you target their reading skills in a way that is proven for the dyslexic mind.  The Orton-Gillingham method is accepted as one of the best methods for teaching my Dyslexic child to read.  All About Spelling and the Logic of English are both programs families use in homeschooling Dyslexic children.  Our family has only used All About Reading and their sister program All About Spelling, both of which were successful for us.  

All About Reading was what we used to help unlock reading for our dyslexic child.  His reading skills jumped after completing level 1 of the program so we didn’t continue beyond that. His case is more unusual and I know many families who diligently work through all 4 levels of the program to master reading.  

When it comes to using audiobooks as an accommodation, we use Scribd and our local library’s  online collection. Scribd provides unlimited access to audiobooks and e-books from major publishers for a monthly fee.  We also use it from some of our morning time read-alouds to save mom’s voice, and sometimes it also takes the place of dad when reading bedtime stories in the evening.  I have been impressed by the breadth of titles available on the services, including some that I can’t find in our local library.  

Seeing Dyslexia as a Gift

On a podcast I was recently listening to, the guest shared that 20% of the population is dyslexic.  When we choose to see Dyslexia only as a learning disability, we are saying that 20% of the population is broken and needs to be fixed.  20% is a high percentage to dismiss simply because they struggle in one area of their education.   Instead, we need to focus on offering simple supports like access to Orton-Gillingham tutors and materials and accommodations from an early age.  Enabling Dyslexics to thrive would embrace these students for their strengths and the diversity it brings to our communities.  Homeschooling a dyslexic child provides a unique opportunity to provide a supportive environment and accommodations without the stigma often found in a traditional classroom, of being a “slow reader”.   You can homeschool your dyslexic child and there are tools available to help you understand how they learn best and to support them.