Kids with dyslexia tend to struggle with reading and writing. They often have difficulty blending sounds together to form words and expressing their thoughts effectively on paper. While traditional structured approaches are useful for building these skills, there are many fun, interactive apps that students with dyslexia can use to help further strengthen their reading and writing skills. Try some of the ideas below:
Bob Books #1 and #2
The Bob Books apps are great reading reinforcement tools for kids in grades pre-K-4. The first app, Bob Books #1, teaches pre-K and Kindergarten students foundational phonics skills, including individual letters and their corresponding sounds, and how to blend those sounds together to form basic words. In the Bob Books #2 app, students are introduced to stories with engaging characters, along with fun, interactive games to develop mastery of basic to more advanced words. These apps follow Orton Gillingham patterns for reinforcing foundational decoding skills.
iWriteWords
Many kids with dyslexia have trouble properly forming letters and numbers and spelling words correctly. This app helps kids build these skills in an enjoyable and engaging manner. Using a multi-sensory format, students use their fingers to trace upper and lower case letters as well as numbers, while learning how to appropriately write them using top-to-bottom formations. They later work on spelling basic words to reinforce encoding and phonics skills. The images are colorful and child-friendly, keeping kids engaged and happy.
Montessori Crosswords
This app is a useful tool for helping dyslexic kids in grades pre-K-4 build basic to more advanced spelling and reading skills. With the app, students have fun building words using a drag-and-drop method, beginning with consonant-vowel-consonant words, then moving onto words with consonant blends, words with digraphs, and words with more complex patterns. There are also “themes,” such as Christmas, clothes, and food, where kids build words that fall into these categories. The pictures are playful and colorful, and the app provides ample practice for building key reading and spelling skills.
Read2Go
Read2Go helps elementary and middle school students engage with books and further develop their reading skills with eBooks. With this app, they have access over 200,000 eBooks through its partnership with Bookshare. Students can search for specific book titles, peruse book categories, download books, and read them directly from Bookshare. They can also highlight important text to practice active reading and study skills, can change the text’s font size and color, and can even have books read aloud to them as part of the app’s text-to-speech functionality. It’s a great tool for students with reading challenges who benefit from more interactive options than paper books offer.
StoryPals
StoryPals helps elementary and middle school students with dyslexia build stronger reading skills. With this app, students can choose to either read a passage aloud or have it read to them, then answer corresponding comprehension questions. Kids love the animated characters, colorful artwork, and interesting topics that these 24 stories offer. The app also saves student quiz scores so parents can track their child’s reading comprehension progress.
Building reading and writing skills doesn’t have to be a boring task! Students with dyslexia can have fun strengthening their skills with these interactive apps, helping them to ultimately achieve academic success.
Dr. Emily Levy is the founder of EBL Coaching, a local tutoring program that specializes in one-on-one home and on-site instruction for students in grades pre-K-12. She is also the author of the workbook series Strategies for Study Success and Flags and Stars. To learn more about Emily Levy and EBL Coaching, visit eblcoaching.com!
