If your child has dyslexia, you've probably been told — more times than you can count — that they just need to practice more. And you've probably discovered that more practice, in the traditional sense, doesn't always make things better. Sometimes it just makes things worse: more frustration, more avoidance, more confidence erosion.
The research on dyslexia and spelling is clear: children with dyslexia are not lazy, careless, or less intelligent. Their brains process phonological information differently, which makes the relationship between sound and spelling genuinely harder to map. The solution is not to try the same thing harder. It's to try different things.
What Doesn't Work (and Why)
Traditional approaches that consistently fail dyslexic children:
- Copying words out multiple times — this is purely visual-motor and doesn't engage the phonological or semantic systems that dyslexic children need to activate
- Weekly spelling tests sent home on Monday — without spaced practice throughout the week, most dyslexic children cannot retain words long enough for a Friday test to stick
- Marking incorrect spellings in red — research shows this increases anxiety without improving outcomes, and anxiety actively impairs the memory processes needed for spelling
- Large word lists — 20 words at once is overwhelming. Five to ten, practiced consistently, is far more effective
What the Research Actually Recommends
Multisensory Learning
The most evidence-based approach to spelling for dyslexic children is multisensory — engaging sight, sound, and movement simultaneously. Hearing a word, saying it aloud, writing it, and checking it involves multiple neural pathways, making the memory trace stronger and more durable.
Hearing Words in Context
Simply seeing a word in isolation tells the brain very little about it. Hearing a word used in a full sentence — "She had a peculiar looking hat" — gives the brain far more to anchor the word to: meaning, context, emotion, story. This is why The Pocket Money Game reads both the word and an example sentence aloud for every spelling challenge.
Spaced Repetition
The spacing effect — revisiting material at increasing intervals — is one of the most robust findings in memory research and is particularly important for dyslexic children. Five minutes of spelling practice daily, using varied approaches, produces much better retention than longer weekly sessions.
Low-Stakes, High-Frequency Practice
Anxiety is the enemy of spelling for dyslexic learners. Practice needs to feel safe — where getting it wrong is just information, not failure. Games are naturally lower-stakes than tests. The hint system in The Pocket Money Game (a dash hint on the second attempt, a 50/50 choice on the third) ensures that children always have a supported path to the correct answer, rather than a blank page and a sense of failure.
Supporting Dyslexic Spellers at Home
- Always read words aloud — hearing is often stronger than visual memory for dyslexic children
- Use mnemonics and memory tricks liberally ("separate has 'a rat' in it")
- Focus on words your child actually uses in their own writing, not just the school list
- Celebrate partial progress — one fewer error per week is real progress
- Never practise when tired, hungry, or already upset — cognitive load matters hugely
- Keep sessions short: ten to fifteen minutes maximum
The goal of spelling practice for a dyslexic child is not perfection. It is gradual, consistent improvement — and the preservation of confidence while that improvement happens.
A Final Note
Dyslexic children often grow into exceptional adults who think differently and creatively. The writer of this game — built by a parent with dyslexia — is living proof. The challenge during childhood is to build enough spelling competency to get by, without crushing the confidence and creativity that will serve them for life. Choose your battles wisely, practice little and often, and make it as enjoyable as you possibly can.