5 Tips to Help Dyslexic Children Learn to Write

Conditions like dyslexia shouldn’t be a barrier to your kids learning to write. Agatha Christie, Octavia Butler and W.B. Yeats are just a handful of writers who were dyslexic and incredibly successful.

Mark, one of our Co-Founders at Love Writing Co., is also dyslexic and understands how difficult learning to write can be for children and how they can be helped. This Dyslexia Awareness Week, we’re sharing some tips to make learning to write easier for children with dyslexia.

1. Colour helps

Learning to read and write can be a difficult process, particularly if your child suffers from dyslexia. If you use books that look boring or contain page after page of the same lined paper, distraction and boredom will almost inevitably kick in. 

Teaching them to write using colourful pencils and booklets with fun pictures and patterns is likely to make the whole experience far more entertaining. If you can turn the process of writing from seeming like a boring, pointless test into something they actively enjoying doing, they will find the process of learning to write less of a pain. 

So, choose colourful pencils, exciting books and colourful imagery which are designed to engage. 

2. Offer support and praise

There’s a long and sad tradition of adults and teachers misunderstanding dyslexic children – characterising them as ‘slow’. Never mind the fact that dyslexia diagnosis doesn’t actually relate to the child’s general intelligence, these characterisations also hurt the child’s self-esteem, and can affect them well into adulthood. 

Try to be as supportive as possible with a dyslexic child – offer them warm praise when they learn something new, and offer understanding when they feel frustrated or seem not to ‘get’ something that others find simple. 

3. Use a high-quality pencil

The last thing you want to happen as your child is about to fully write the letter ‘B’ for the first time after weeks of practice is for their pencil’s graphite to break. Soft graphite is key to a durable pencil which is easy for your children to learn to write with. They need tools that they know will work as soon as they are pulled out of their pencil cases and will still work when dropped or come into contact with liquid. 

The pencil should also be easy to hold and control and move smoothly across the page, just like our Love Writing Co. Pencils!

Knowing that thee right pencil is there whenever they need to write will hugely encourage a child to write more and more. If they can’t find a pencil when they can find the words, those words won’t get written down.

4. Use writing books that are full of shapes and pictures

Learning to write becomes far easier if children can write out the shapes of the letters that they are thinking about on the page. Colourful books and resources which celebrate each stage of your child’s writing development as they learn how to form full sentences will make the process considerably easier for everyone.

5. Break the process down

Breaking the process of learning to write down into steps will make it far easier for your kids to learn. These steps can take a fairly long amount of time to complete. But, by remaining patient and congratulating your kids as they complete each stage of the process, you will transform learning to write into a fun, encouraging experience for them.  

Learning difficulties make learning harder but not impossible. Awareness, patience, understanding, and flexibility of approach as well as some imagination, are required to help dyslexic children learn to write. The steps above detail just a few of the ways in which you can make this process easier for those children. For more information about managing dyslexia, the British Dyslexia Association offers some excellent guidance for parents.