Whitstable and Coastal Dyslexia Service

28/08/2026

28/08/2026

Teaching non-decodable words needs lots of repetition, but how to keep little ones interested and focused? Here are some methods I have been using for Key Stage One pupils. She, me, we, he and be all have a sound in common so these can be taught as a set.

1. I have bought a huge dice for rolling and reading. Write a word for each number.
2. Rice writing is great, but my students like me to hide words for them- partially uncover wooden letters so they have to guess what letters they may be before delving in!
3. Keep it multisensory! Chalk writing, making the words out of Play Doh.
4. Pelmanism (pairs game) is great and you can keep adding to your set as you introduce more words!

PHOTOS IN THE COMMENTS

Whitstable and Coastal Dyslexia Service: dyslexia assessments and specialist teaching for primary school children in the East Kent area.

07/06/2026

Why do some words have a doubled consonant in the middle? This is called medial consonant doubling.

What do you notice about the first vowel in ‘puddle’?

It is short. We need to protect the short vowel, so we need to double the middle consonant. Otherwise, ‘puddle would be ‘pudle’ with a long ‘u’ and ‘middle’ would be ‘midle’ with a long ‘i’.

We can use the ‘rabbit rule’ for this- ‘rabbit’ has a short ‘a’ sound so we use two ‘b’s. A child I am working with is learning that the end letters ‘le’ make ‘ull’. This is an extremely common word ending. But in many two-syllable words, where the first vowel is short, we must double the medial consonant. There are exceptions!

Physically cutting the words into syllables is an interactive exercise: They can read words, segment the syllables, and understand about medial doubling. Why not use a different colour for the short vowel too?

23/05/2026

Quite a lot of gardening done on this very sunny weekend. It led me to ponder the spelling of the word ‘flower’ and its homophone ‘flour’. Homophones are tricky and children often make errors. Interestingly, the two words were spelt the same in Middle English. ‘Flour’ being the finest part of the crop once it is milled - a tiny grain which makes the bread- and ‘flower’ was the tiniest part of a plant. The ‘fl’ at the start is found in the Latin and French words for flower.

It was only in the 17th century when the two distinctions were given different spellings. Even in Shakespeare’s time, words could be spelt in different ways. Rules, standardisation and conventions can be a significant barrier for dyslexic learners. Word history can help to explain why we have tricky words.

Contact www.whitstableandcoastaldyslexiaservice.co.uk for dyslexia help and support 🌹💐🌸

11/05/2026

A pupil was given school spellings using the word ‘decide’. A common mistake that learners make is to start the word ‘di’ because they hear it like that.

As part of our morphological approach, children add the ‘tails’ (suffixes) to the words to form ‘decided’, ‘deciding’ etc but I also looked into the history of the word. It turns out the Latin root is ‘decaedere’ (to cut off). This consists of the prefix ‘de’ meaning off and ‘caedere’ meaning cut.

If you decide on something, you cut off any uncertainty. You make a split decision etc.

My student felt this helped to remember the ‘de’ prefix in decide and he felt more confident that he would be able to remember it this way.

26/04/2026

Homophones can be tricky. A child I was working with this week was given some visuals to help but decided she wanted to do her own doodles to aid her memory for the different spellings. We had a very nice conversation about why it would be good to have a ‘whole’ pizza when it feels like there is a ‘hole’ in your tummy! We made actions to go with this too.

20/04/2026

Different brains. Different strengths. Different ways of navigating the world.

Understanding co-occurring differences helps us build better support, greater empathy, and more inclusive spaces for everyone. To learn more about neurovisirty and co-occuring difficulties, head to the link: https://loom.ly/QfcDylQ

18/04/2026

A current passion of mine: I am currently working with several secondary school students. We focus on study skills, reading but also Morphology- the units of meaning within a word- and etymology - the origins of words. It is often fascinating how we can be taken on a journey to the past, collect similar words and then build vocabulary. Suddenly, more parts of the puzzle start falling into place. Phonics and phonological processing will be challenging for a dyslexic learner. This gives them another way ‘in’ and can be a really interesting journey.

Sometimes, English spellings are strange! Etymology can help us explain why there are silent letters or odd combinations. Take the word ‘know’ for instance. I use a tree to show word roots - Latin, Greek, Proto-Indo European etc. A G or a ‘C’ sound was always at the front. It used to be pronounced….but pronunciation evolves quicker than written language…so we still have a ‘k’ but we no longer pronounce it!

This may be the thing that sticks in a learner’s brain and they remember the (now) silent k!

I even use this with primary-aged children. It needs to be managed carefully and creatively to engage them fully but it works!