Category: Literacy Resources

Top Gifts to Support Reading and Writing Skills for Children with Dyslexia

Finding meaningful gifts for children with dyslexia can be a wonderful way to support their unique learning journey, boost their confidence, and encourage a love for reading and self-expression. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, family member, or friend, this guide provides a range of educational gift ideas perfect for holidays, birthdays, back-to-school season, or simply as a “just because” present.

Books for Empowerment and Encouragement

1. The Alphabet War: A Story about Dyslexia by Diane Burton Robb

What is it?

This engaging picture book tells the story of a young boy learning to cope with dyslexia, making it a relatable read for early elementary school children.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

The Alphabet War provides comfort to children who feel “different” because they struggle with reading. It reassures them they’re not alone and encourages self-acceptance and persistence. The age-appropriate language and simple illustrations make it an ideal read-aloud for 1st graders and suitable for independent reading for 3rd and 4th graders. The story’s gentle message emphasizes the importance of support and resilience, making it an uplifting addition to any child’s bookshelf.

2. Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco

What is it?

Based on Polacco’s own experience with dyslexia, Thank You, Mr. Falker tells the moving story of Trisha, a young girl who struggles with reading and finds hope through the support of her teacher.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

This story resonates with children in early elementary school who may feel frustrated or different because of their reading challenges. The heartfelt message of resilience and encouragement highlights the importance of supportive adults in a child’s journey. It also fosters empathy, helping young readers understand the power of kindness and patience. With age-appropriate language, it’s ideal for reading aloud or independent reading for 3rd and 4th graders.

Confidence-Boosting Programs and Accessories

3. Mighty Doodle

What is it?

Next up on our list of gifts for children with dyslexia is Mighty Doodle, an AI-powered virtual tutor designed to help children in 1st through 4th grade develop reading, writing, and spelling skills through interactive lessons. Using voice and handwriting recognition, it customizes the learning experience for each child. In other words, Mighty Doodle teaches how all children learn.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

Mighty Doodle’s adaptive approach supports children struggling with dyslexia through evidence-based methods, focusing on each child’s strengths and needs. This program combines learning with movement, helping children stay engaged and mindful while working through literacy challenges. It’s an excellent way to empower young readers by integrating technology and interactive learning tailored to their unique pace and style.

4. Interactive Learning Workbooks

What is it?

Workbooks focused on phonics and reading comprehension help children improve their literacy through a hands-on, gamified approach. You can find them at Amazon, Target, and Barnes & Noble.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

These workbooks offer structured, engaging activities to build literacy skills and reading confidence. Look for phonics and comprehension-focused workbooks to give young readers a chance to practice foundational skills at their own pace, reinforcing concepts learned in school.

5. Sensory Learning Kits

What is it?

This gift for children who are struggling with dyslexia often includes tactile alphabet cards, tracing boards, and textured letters. You can find sensory learning kits from Lakeshore Learning or Etsy.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

These sensory tools make learning to read and write more engaging by activating multiple senses. Tactile experiences can be especially helpful for children who struggle with dyslexia as they learn to recognize letters and sounds. Hands-on practice can make learning feel more accessible and enjoyable.

6. Personalized Storybooks

What is it?

Custom storybooks from companies including Wonderbly and I See Me! allow children to become the heroes of their own stories, with their name and likeness incorporated into the tale.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

Personalized storybooks make reading feel exciting and personal, motivating children to engage with stories that reflect their own identities. These books are a wonderful way to nurture a love for reading and give children a story that celebrates their unique journey.

7. Story Sequencing and Comprehension Cards

What is it?

These cards, available from Lakeshore Learning, illustrate different scenes of a story. Children are encouraged to put them in the correct order, which helps them build comprehension and sequencing skills.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

Story sequencing cards make reading comprehension feel like a game, which encourages children to explore narrative structure in a hands-on way. They’re especially helpful for building understanding of plot and sequence – crucial skills for developing readers.

8. Mantra Bracelet

What is it?

Next up on our list of gifts for children with dyslexia is personalized mantra bracelets. These bracelets can be engraved with affirmations including “I Am Brave” or “I Am Strong” to provide children with daily reminders of their inner strength. Find them on Etsy.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

These bracelets offer children a simple way to access daily encouragement. Positive affirmations help build resilience, especially important for children navigating the challenges of dyslexia. A mantra bracelet can be a comforting, wearable reminder of their abilities and potential.

9. Visual Timers

What is it?

Unlike a clock, which just tells the time, visual timers show children how much time they have left to complete an activity or task by counting down the time. Lakeshore Learning and Amazon have many varieties of these colorful timekeeping tools.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

Visual timers make it easier for children to manage time without feeling pressured, a valuable tool for children who may find traditional time concepts challenging. They can help children improve task focus and time management, while boosting confidence in both academic and personal settings.

10. Noise-Canceling Headphones

What is it?

Rather than just playing audio from the connected device, noise-canceling headphones also reduce background noise for a better listening experience.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

For children who benefit from audio support, noise-canceling headphones help them concentrate on reading and using interactive learning programs including Mighty Doodle. By reducing background noise, these headphones help create a more focused environment, which enhances their learning experience.

Activity and Mindfulness Books

11. The Confidence Code for Girls by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman

What is it?

The Confidence Code for Girls provides stories and activities designed to build self-confidence in young girls and offers practical advice on resilience.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

Although some concepts are tailored for older children, younger readers can still benefit through shared reading with a caregiver. With an emphasis on embracing mistakes and tackling challenges, this book encourages children struggling with dyslexia to develop a growth mindset, helping them gain confidence in both academic and personal spheres.

12. Mindfulness Coloring Books or Gratitude Journals

What is it?

To wrap up our list of educational gifts for children with dyslexia we have presents that support emotional development. Mindfulness coloring books are specifically designed to help children increase focus and manage stress, while gratitude journals provide children with prompts that help them focus on the positive things in their lives.

Why is it a great gift for children with dyslexia?

These resources encourage children to pause, reflect, and build mindfulness habits, which can help with emotional regulation. Coloring offers a relaxing activity for younger children, while a gratitude journal can help older children develop a positive outlook. Both options foster self-awareness and resilience, which are important life skills for any child.

Wrapping Up: The Best Gifts for Children with Dyslexia

Selecting thoughtful, supportive gifts for children with dyslexia can make a lasting impact on their journey to literacy and self-confidence. Each of these gift ideas offers tools, encouragement, or mindfulness practices designed to nurture resilience and a love for learning. Whether it’s through books, confidence-boosting accessories, or interactive programs including Mighty Doodle, these gifts provide an opportunity to celebrate and empower young learners as they navigate the unique challenges of dyslexia.

Give your loved one the gift of Mighty Doodle today.

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Watching your child learn to read is an exciting journey marked with milestones, challenges, and rewards.

As a parent, understanding the 5 pillars of literacy – phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension – can make a huge difference in how effectively your child learns to read. 

Whether your child is just starting to explore the world of letters and sounds, or if they’re already reading, these pillars are critical at every stage of their literacy journey. By familiarizing yourself with each pillar, you’re better equipped to support your child’s development.

Keep reading this blog post to learn:

The 5 Pillars of Literacy

The 5 pillars of literacy are the foundation upon which children build reading skills. While your child will be exposed to these skills in the classroom, there’s a lot you can do at home to help your child improve their literacy.

  1. Phonemic awareness
  2. Phonics
  3. Fluency
  4. Vocabulary
  5. Comprehension

1. Phonemic Awareness: The Sounds of Language

What Is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, recognize, and manipulate phonemes, the individual sounds in spoken words. This skill is foundational for learning to read because it allows children to understand that words are made up of smaller units of sound. For example, the word “hat” is composed of three phonemes: /h/, /a/, and /t/.

The word "hat" is composed of three phonemes: /h/, /a/, and /t/.

Phonemic awareness is a part of phonological awareness in which listeners are able to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest mental units of sound that help to differentiate units of meaning.

When children develop strong phonemic awareness, they’re better able to blend sounds to form words and break words down into individual sounds. This skill is essential before a child can move on to learning phonics, which focuses on connecting sounds to written letters.

How to Help Your Child Develop Phonemic Awareness

Clap out syllables

2. Phonics: The Relationship Between Sounds & Letters

What Is Phonics?

Phonics involves teaching children the relationship between the sounds of spoken language and the letters or groups of letters, known as graphemes, that represent those sounds in written language. Essentially, it’s learning how to identify words by understanding that letters and combinations of letters correspond to specific sounds.

Phonics is crucial because it enables children to sound out unfamiliar words, which is an important step toward independent reading. Once a child understands phonics, they can begin deciphering written language.

How to Help Your Child Learn Phonics

Phonics apps and games: There are numerous phonics reading programs for children, including Mighty Doodle, that can reinforce phonics skills in an engaging, interactive way. Look for ones that focus on letter-sound matching, word-building, and blending sounds to form words.

3. Fluency: Reading with Speed, Accuracy, & Expression

What Is Fluency?

Fluency is the ability to read text quickly, accurately, and without hesitation. It’s not just about reading fast; fluency also means reading in a way that makes the text sound natural. Fluent readers recognize words automatically, which allows them to focus on understanding the meaning of what they read instead of struggling to decipher each word.

Fluency is the link between word recognition to understanding. A child who reads fluently can read with less hesitation, which frees up their mental energy to focus on comprehending the content.

How to Help Your Child Develop Fluency

Read a sentence to your child, then have them repeat it back to you.

4. Vocabulary: Building Word Knowledge

What Is Vocabulary?

Vocabulary refers to the words a person knows and understands. The larger a child’s vocabulary, the easier it is for them to understand what they read. A strong vocabulary is essential for comprehension, which is the fifth pillar of literacy, as children need to understand what the words they’re reading mean.

There are two types of vocabulary – oral vocabulary and reading vocabulary – both of which are important to a child’s overall literacy development:

How to Help Your Child Develop Their Vocabulary

5. Comprehension: Understanding & Making Meaning of Words

What Is Comprehension?

Comprehension means being able to understand and interpret what you read. It involves not just knowing what the words say but knowing their meaning. Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading because it allows children to gain knowledge, enjoy stories, and communicate with others.

Strong comprehension skills help children to think critically about what they read and make inferences. By understanding what they’re reading, children learn to summarize information, identify main ideas, and understand the author’s purpose.

How to Help Your Child Improve Their Reading Comprehension

Wrapping Up the 5 Pillars of Literacy

When you understand the 5 pillars of literacy, you’re better able to guide your child towards becoming a proficient reader. As a parent, you can create a literacy-rich environment at home by reading with your child regularly, playing literacy-based games, and making learning to read an enjoyable experience. Here’s a quick recap of how you can support your child through each pillar:

An even more comprehensive and efficient way to make sure your child masters the 5 pillars of literacy is to equip them with Mighty Doodle, the virtual tutor that teaches children in 1st through 4th grades how to read, write and spell. This literacy skills app focusing on phonics and comprehension teaches how ALL children learn and uses evidence-based methods to empower emerging readers. 

Help your child master the 5 pillars of literacy by downloading Mighty Doodle today; available for iPad in the Apple App store.

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month 2024, which highlights the need for a greater understanding of learning differences. There’s no better time to introduce children to Mighty Doodle, the AI-powered tutor for dyslexia. Specifically designed for learners in 1st through 4th grades, Mighty Doodle helps children master reading, writing, and spelling using the science of reading and the Orton-Gillingham tutoring approach. During Dyslexia Awareness Month 2024 and beyond, Mighty Doodle helps emerging readers who may be struggling or diagnosed with dyslexia who are ready to learn to read, write and spell. In this blog, you’ll learn:

What Is Mighty Doodle?

Mighty Doodle is the AI-powered tutor for dyslexia that teaches children how to read, write and spell in a 1:1 format directly connecting the child to the lessons taught by Mighty Doodle. The iPad-based platform teaches how all children learn, using evidence-based techniques – like the Orton-Gillingham method – and a whole child-centered approach.  Mighty Doodle is known as one of the best reading programs for children with dyslexia. In fact, children who engage with this program often achieve up to 4x better scores on national standardized tests compared to their peers. Children are engaged and develop a connection to their self-directed,, personalized avatar… Mighty Doodle is a friend, and their guide who teaches them the way they learn, with real time feedback and rewards! So, how does Mighty Doodle work? 

Mighty Doodle is especially effective for readers who struggle with dyslexia or reading because it’s centered around the Orton-Gillingham tutoring method.

What Is the Orton-Gillingham Approach?

The Orton-Gillingham (OG) approach is a highly structured, evidence-based approach to teaching reading, particularly designed to help learners with dyslexia and other reading difficulties. It was developed in the 1930s by Dr. Samuel Orton, a neuropsychiatrist, and Anna Gillingham, an educator and psychologist.  The Orton-Gillingham method is widely recognized as one of the most effective approaches for teaching children with dyslexia, as it addresses the specific differences they experience with language processing.  The method centers on teaching the connections between letters and sounds in a direct, explicit, and multisensory way. By focusing on phonics and the structure of the English language, the OG approach helps students improve their reading fluency, comprehension, and spelling. While designed for dyslexic learners, the Orton-Gillingham method can be beneficial for any child struggling with reading and spelling. It is often used in one-on-one or small-group instruction, particularly in special education settings.

How Mighty Doodle Helps Children With Dyslexia Learn to Read During Dyslexia Awareness Month 2024 and Beyond

Now that you’re familiar with Mighty Doodle and the Orton-Gillingham method, let’s explore how this AI-powered tutor uses the OG method to help children with dyslexia learn to read.  Keep reading to learn how Mighty Doodle, the dyslexia learning tools for kids, incorporates the following Orton-Gillingham approach principles into its platform:

Multi-Sensory Learning

Unlike other reading instruction methods, which primarily rely on sight and hearing, the Orton-Gillingham tutoring approach engages more senses, including sight, hearing, speech, touch, and movement, to reinforce learning. Specifically, the OG method requires children to say the letters and sounds they are writing, as well as listen to the sounds words make. Mighty Doodle embodies this approach by incorporating multi-sensory learning into its methodology through interactive games. For example, students might trace letters while saying their sounds aloud, combining visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning. Mighty Doodle’s® gamified learning for children with dyslexia makes learning to read fun and engaging.

Sequential and Cumulative Lessons

In the Orton-Gillingham approach, lessons follow a carefully structured sequence, starting with the simplest concepts, like letters and phonemes (sounds), and gradually progressing to more complex ones, like word structures and syllable types. This structured progression helps students develop a solid foundation before tackling more challenging material. Mighty Doodle mirrors the Orton-Gillingham method by designing each lesson to link back to what learners already know. Sequential, cumulative lessons ensure that as new concepts are introduced – like blending phonemes into words – children can draw on their existing skills.  This gradual approach makes it easier for new readers to grasp and retain new information. By continuously building on what they’ve learned, children gain confidence and a deeper understanding of language with the help of Mighty Doodle.

Explicit and Direct Instruction

As a parent, you have been reading for a long time, so it can be easy to forget what you didn’t know when you started your reading journey years ago and assume your child already knows them.  Assumptions can be detrimental to a dyslexic child’s progress and confidence, which is why the Orton-Gillingham approach and the Mighty Doodle program assume nothing. Instead, the method teaches every skill step by step, so no child gets left behind. Mighty Doodle incorporates this principle in its methodology by explicitly teaching phonics, spelling rules, and language structure. By assuming nothing, Mighty Doodle makes reading accessible to all children.

Focus on Phonemic Awareness

The Orton-Gillingham method emphasizes the importance of phonemic awareness, which is one of the five pillars of literacy. Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate phonemes: the individual sounds in words. Like the OG approach, Mighty Doodle focuses on teaching new readers to understand the sound structure of language. The program does this by teaching students to break down words into individual sounds and blend them together. Phonemic awareness is a crucial skill in early literacy development, as it lays the groundwork for reading and spelling fluency.

Diagnostic-Prescriptive Instruction

The Orton-Gillingham method understands that there is no one-size fits all approach to learning how to read, especially when it comes to dyslexia. Two children in the same classroom could learn at different speeds and face different challenges.  The OG method uses a diagnostic-prescriptive approach to respond to each learner’s specific challenges. This approach first diagnoses students to understand their strengths and weaknesses, and then prescribes the best strategies for overcoming struggles and leveraging strengths. Mighty Doodle takes a diagnostic-prescriptive approach by tailoring its lessons to children’s needs and progress. The program uses real-time tracking and analytics to assess your child’s progress while they read, and adapts the lessons to their individual needs.

Wrapping Up: Mighty Doodle Supports Readers During Dyslexia Awareness Month 2024

As we bring attention to dyslexia during Dyslexia Awareness Month 2024, it’s important to recognize the role that Mighty Doodle plays in helping young readers with dyslexia. By combining evidence-based pedagogical approaches like Orton-Gillingham with technology, Mighty Doodle empowers learners to build essential reading and writing skills. This holistic approach not only addresses the unique challenges of dyslexic readers, but also fosters confidence and a love of learning. Help your child improve their reading skills and confidence by downloading Mighty Doodle today; available in the Apple App store.