100 resources for Homeschooling ADHD, Dyslexia

homeschooling ADHD | homeschooling dyslexia | 100 resources for ADHD, dyslexia

Our homeschool is creative chaos, a constant series of ups and downs, highs and lows. And I love it. I love homeschooling ADHD, creating that specialized education plan that fits who they are. I love how homeschooling dyslexia allows me to progress at my child’s pace, to piece together resources that are the perfect combination. I love to see my children with learning differences LOVE learning. That’s not to say that it’s always easy. There are definite challenges. But what many people don’t realize is the vast amount of resources available both to help you understand ADHD & dyslexia and to help you succeed at homeschooling ADHD & Dyslexia.

From books and ecourses, blogs and printables, fidgets and curriculum options—here is your go-to list with over 100 resources for homeschooling ADHD/dyslexia, and everything that comes with it.

100+ resources for homeschooling ADHD, dyslexia

Seventh Grade Homeschool Curriculum for a Classical Charlotte Mason education

7th grade homeschool curriculum | ADHD | Classical Charlotte Mason

My young seventh grader is highly motivated with exceptional language skills. He thrives on challenge and uses his ADHD firing-on-all-cylinders brain to explore a variety of subjects and interests. Last year, he tackled Latin, Greek, and Spanish completely of his own volition. He loves to code on Scratch, play guitar, build in woodshop, write novels, and read voraciously. Choosing his seventh grade homeschool curriculum is always fun because he always so enthusiastic.

Fifth Grade Homeschool Curriculum for ADHD and Dyslexia

fifth grade homeschool curriculum | homeschooling ADHD & Dyslexia

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from homeschooling dyslexia is to teach my child, not a grade level or a curriculum. I’m learning to just do the next thing, regardless of what the level is or what the number on the cover of the book says. I look closely at what my daughter is capable of, what the scope and sequence charts recommend, and what the table of contents show. Yes, I may look at a placement test, but the fact is my daughter doesn’t always test well. So these aren’t 100% accurate either. I have to do my research. But the result is a fifth grade homeschool curriculum that challenges her appropriately while inspiring her and instilling her with confidence that she CAN do it.

Our fifth grade homeschool curriculum for her is a mix of resources ranging from 3rd grade in some areas to 4th/5th grade in others, a customized learning plan for her success. And we are excited about it.

Our Classical-Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum for ADHD & Dyslexia

classical charlotte mason homeschool curriculum | ADHD & Dyslexia

Creating a curriculum plan to fit my wild spectrum of learning needs plus the educational values and goals that we believe in can be quite an enormous undertaking, and one I’m constantly evaluating. I believe our family’s ADHD and dyslexia is a gift, not just a struggle, giving my kids unique strengths and perspectives. Can a dyslexic child pursue a literature-rich education? Absolutely! But I can’t force it to look like everyone else’s. Can a child with ADHD handle the rigors of a classical education? Absolutely! The discipline teaches some great skills to my kids with executive function challenges, but it also has to accommodate their creativity and need to move—energy under control. A Classical-Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum is the perfect combination for our ADHD/dyslexia family.

Classically, we’ll be studying the same time period together this year as part of our four year rotation (Early Modern: Colonial to Pioneers). While my oldest delves deeply into the logic stage, I’ll be keeping my fifth grader at the grammar stage, continuing to lay foundations for her and allowing her to make connections at her own pace. Here’s what our Classical-Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum looks like at each level.

Ideas for a Skills-based Summer

homeschool summer | skills based summer | executive functioning skills ADHD

Over the years, we’ve done a variety of things during our summer homeschool months. Kids with ADHD need structure, and while I’ve usually offered a break from our core subjects, we usually do something over those summer months to provide a structure. Some summers, we’ve focused on those subjects and activities we didn’t have time for during the school year: hands-on science, music appreciation, art, and nature study. But another fun option is to focus on skills. A skills-based summer can look different for each family and each child based on their ages and interests. The goal is to evaluate what sets of skills you want to work on and create a structure to help you strengthen those skills.

Ideas for a Skills-based Summer

Tips for Homeschooling Foreign Language with Dyslexia

foreign languages for kids | homeschooling foreign language | homeschooling dyslexia

When a child has dyslexia, there are all kinds of questions. Will she ever be able to read and write? Will he go to college? Can she learn the things my other children are learning? Can he learn a foreign language? Obviously, these answers are as individual as the children themselves, but overall, yes! Your dyslexic child CAN learn. It’s not that a dyslexic child can’t learn; it’s that the child will learn so much differently than a non-dyslexic child. Language skills are definitely a challenge, but they aren’t necessarily insurmountable. Homeschooling foreign language with your dyslexic child is a perfect example.

Both my daughter and my husband have dyslexia. My husband just earned his second masters degree. He can also speak Spanish and translate Greek and Hebrew. He works hard, and he’s learned what helps him to learn. So when my daughter wanted to learn Spanish, I said “absolutely!” I know my dyslexic child can learn a foreign language, but I also know that how she learns that language may look vastly different from how my other children learn it. 

Tips for homeschooling foreign language with dyslexia

My daughter has wanted to learn Spanish for years, and we’ve tried a few different approaches for her. She’s tried language apps and activity books and games. For awhile, nothing seemed to work—until I started to rethink what I was doing. I knew that my daughter could learn a language; she’d learned to speak English without a problem. What I needed to do was incorporate the same method into our Spanish study. For the first time this year, we are starting to make some real progress. She’s learning Spanish! Here are a few tips we’ve learned on our journey as we homeschool foreign languages.

Keep it visual, not verbal. This may seem like an oxymoron, but it’s true. Dyslexics learn visually. They think in pictures, not words. So when you attempt to help a dyslexic child learn a foreign language (or even English), keep it visual. Use lots of pictures and videos. Use the language daily as you go about your day. Allow your child to associate the picture and the experience with the language he is learning.

Immerse your child. How do kids learn to speak their native language? Immersion! Homeschooling foreign language is the same way. Daily immerse your child in hands-on, repeated interaction with the language. Most often, dyslexic children learn by doing. Your child with learn a foreign language by living in the context of the language day in and day out. Label objects around the house. Role-play conversations. Have real conversations and play games by including the foreign language vocabulary within your normal English conversation.

Engage the senses. Include as many of your child’s senses as you possibly can. An important way to help your dyslexic child learn a foreign language is by allowing your child to encounter and experience that language—hearing it, seeing it, tasting it, smelling it, and touching it. Taste the eggs and say the foreign word for eggs. Smell the flower and use the new vocabulary for flower. Touch the floor or the ceiling or the door. Play hide-and-go-seek in Spanish or French or Russian or whatever language you’re learning.

Be patient. Allow time for your child to learn. We’ve learned this in so many other areas, haven’t we? We are patient with reading and grammar and comprehension. We understand that our child will have challenges and will have his or her own pace. Homeschooling foreign language with dyslexia is not impossible, if we are patient with the process. It doesn’t matter if the curriculum says it can be completed in a year; let him take two or three years. Allow your child to learn at the pace that is appropriate for him.

homeschooling foreign language with dyslexia

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Why I love Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids®

This year, we’ve loved using Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids®. My daughter enjoys watching the funny, engaging Spanish videos of children doing the things she understands: eating breakfast, reading a book, playing a game, etc. The visually-based quizzes allow her to test what she’s learned with pictures and audio, without relying solely on her reading skills. And the variety of activities allows her to immerse herself without getting bored. Best of all, it’s self-paced, which has eliminated any pressure for her.

Typically, my daughter watches the lessons a couple of times a week with very little involvement from me. She works through activities and watches the videos over and over until she feels ready to move on to the next lesson. She and her brothers role play the videos they’ve watched, repeating the dialogue of the characters in the stories, playing the games the characters have played, and regularly practicing their Spanish vocabulary in a playful way throughout our day. She loves her Spanish lessons, and she’s thriving. (Her brothers love them, too!)  Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids® has been ideal, because it incorporates all of these basic tips for helping a dyslexic child learn a foreign language.

  • It’s visual.
  • It’s based on immersion.
  • It engages my kids’ senses.
  • It allows us to patiently keep our own pace.

foreign languages for kids

Though we have used the online membership,Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids® also has DVD sets available, including a special set for young learners and a super set with workbooks. Single level sets are also available.

For more information or to see samples of the program, visit Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids® And now through April 30, 2018, you can get 20% off any order by using the code 20OFFFORYOU. Plus, enter the giveaway for a free Spanish level on DVD! (Prize shipped only to USA addresses.)

Homeschooling foreign language with your dyslexic child does not have to be impossible. Our children are smart and capable. They can learn the things they want to learn. Our role is not to tell them that they can’t, but to provide them with the tools so that they can. And perhaps this is my top reason for loving Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids®: it has allowed me to teach my daughter that she can learn the things she wants to learn. 

Can your dyslexic child learn a foreign language? Yes! Absolutely, yes! We just can’t expect that process to look anything like the Spanish class we took in high school.

homeschooling foreign language

Homeschooling ADHD with Charlotte Mason

homeschooling ADHD with Charlotte Mason

I have poignant memories of the chaos and trauma of those years right before we realized two of our kids had ADHD. The rages, the sensory issues, the meltdowns, the distraction, the hyperactivity! While early on we had embraced the classical method of education for our homeschool, I was drowning in the ADHD chaos. Trying to enforce a rigid daily structure with lots of memory work was a constant uphill battle. Additionally, our family was also experiencing different health issues at the time. My husband was going in for his second back surgery when I picked up Karen Andreola’s Charlotte Mason Companion to read in the waiting room. Within just a couple of hours, I devoured that book. It was a breath of fresh inspiration, the grace I needed to navigate our torrent of homeschool challenges. Homeschooling ADHD with Charlotte Mason’s ideas became a game-changer, even a life-changer for us.

While I don’t adhere to everything Charlotte Mason, I really appreciated the outlook she had on children and education in general and her practical tips for maintaining a healthy love for learning. Charlotte Mason changed how I approached homeschooling ADHD kiddos.

Homeschooling ADHD with Charlotte Mason

Soon after my kids’ were diagnosed with ADHD, my pediatrician recommended a popular book on the topic. I hated it. I hated that the focus was largely on how hard life with ADHD would be. I already knew that. I lived it daily. I wanted to hear something positive. As I read Charlotte Mason’s ideas about children and people, I loved how she helped me gain perspective in those hard moments.

“We all have need to be trained to see, and to have our eyes opened before we can take in the joy that is meant for us in this beautiful life.”

I needed to train myself to look for those positives. The struggles were obvious, but what were the triumphs? What were my kids excellent at? What did ADHD give them? For my kids, ADHD gives them an incredible enthusiasm for life, for adventure, for change. They love people and the spontaneity of life as a pastor’s family. They are highly creative and innovative. They rarely use anything for it’s intended purpose, and very often think of solutions most people would never see. They are idea-machines! They have more ideas in a single day than some people have in a lifetime. And my kids are flat-out funny! Oh my goodness, we are never short on laughs. In the daily grind, it’s not always easy to remember these positives. We have to train ourselves to see the beauty and joy.

“A child is a person in whom all possibilities are present – present now at this very moment – not to be educed after many years and efforts manifold on the part of the educator.”

Parenting and homeschooling ADHD is far from easy. In the midst of training who they will be, we can’t lose sight of who they already are. We tried ADHD meds for a year before deciding to treat it with diet changes. And I’m so thankful for that time. It allowed me to get my head above water and see the connection between what my kids ate and their behavior so that we could make permanent diet changes to help them. And both the meds and the diet allowed me to see who my children really were, beyond the moods and meltdowns and rages and behavior problems.

The possibilities are already present in each child. Look for them! Some days you may have to look hard, but they are there. You aren’t just educating their future possibilities; our children are full of possibility each day.

“We attempt to define a person, the most commonplace person we know, but he will not submit to bounds; some unexpected beauty of nature breaks out; we find he is not what we thought, and begin to suspect that every person exceeds our power of measurement.”

It is so hard to see people make judgements based on what they know or think they know about ADHD or your child. But honestly, we are all guilty of that. Even as parents, we can easily fall into this trap of attempting to define who our children are. But every person exceeds our power of measurement. ADHD kids know no bounds! That’s the best and worst of every day. They will exceed every measurement and every expectation. They go far above and beyond even where you want them to be. I am often surprised and humbled by my children; they are not always what I think, and they often exceed all power of measurement.

“Look on education as something between the child’s soul and God. Modern Education tends to look on it as something between the child’s brain and the standardized test.”

homeschooling charlotte mason | homeschooling ADHD

“Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally to thinking for themselves as the well-nourished body takes to growing; and we must bear in mind that growth, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, is the sole end of education.”

Charlotte Mason reminded me that my job as a homeschool parent was to nurture much more than the just the brain. Homeschooling ADHD with Charlotte Mason challenged me to think of educating them emotionally, spiritually, and physically as well as mentally. This one aspect of Charlotte Mason gave me enormous freedom. So many days I would get discouraged about what didn’t get done academically; we’d spent the whole day talking through intense moods and character and behavior. There were days when I felt I did more counseling than teaching. And yet, Charlotte Mason reminded me that I was teaching, that this counseling and working through BIG FEELINGS was as much part of their education as math or reading. I am educating them for living and for life, not just for college and career.

“Give your child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information.”

homeschooling charlotte mason | homeschooling ADHD charlotte mason

“So much for the right books; the right use of them is another matter. The children must enjoy the book. The ideas it holds must each make that sudden, delightful impact upon their minds, must cause that intellectual stir, which mark the inception of an idea.”

“For the mind is capable of dealing with only one kind of food; it lives, grows and is nourished upon ideas only; mere information is to it as a meal of sawdust to the body; there are no organs for the assimilation of the one more than of the other.”

“Education is a life; that life is sustained on ideas; ideas are of spiritual origin, and that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another. The duty of parents is to sustain a child’s inner life with ideas as they sustain his body with food.”

Charlotte Mason has a lot to say about ideas. Ideas vs. facts—that is the cornerstone of the Charlotte Mason homeschooling, and the key to recharging our homeschool. I’ve mentioned already my kids are a fountain of ideas, constantly. When I switched our focus from simply memorizing facts to capturing and connecting with ideas, our homeschool turned 180 degrees. It was night and day difference. What did this look like? Instead of battling my kids to memorize timelines and facts, we read about people and wrote in the dates to the timeline that my child connected with. I stopped forcing quantity and chose a smaller assortment of content and facts that we could savor and enjoy. My kids remembered people and events because they connected with the ideas that resonated with them; they began empathizing and identifying with the people we read about. They remembered those connections for years, long after they forgot the memorized facts.

I love homeschooling my ADHD kiddos. I love homeschooling with Charlotte Mason’s perspective. Here are a few other practical aspects of Charlotte Mason that we use to homeschool ADHD:

  • Short lessons and lots of variety. For my younger kids, lessons are no longer than 15-20 minutes. Their sharp, fast minds learn a lot in a short time and then have to move on. Staying longer on a topic does not teach them any more; it just frustrates all of us. Even for my sixth grader, most subjects are 15-20 minutes with a couple of subjects (like math)  taking him 30 min.
  • Nature Study and outdoor time. Fresh air can do more for my kids’ moods than anything else. I’m an introvert and a home-body, but I’ve learned the importance of getting us all outside regularly. 
  • Variety and handicrafts. As part of embracing the education of the whole child, Charlotte Mason recommends a lot of variety and arts and handicraft. I’ve allowed a very loose definition of handicraft as any craft done by hand: duct-tape projects, rubber band bracelets, paracord crafts, crocheting, drawing, woodwork, making paper airplanes, sewing felt animals or monsters, building paper minecraft villages, legos, etc. Their hands are busy, and their creativity is nurtured as much as their intellect.

We are still a pretty solid mix of both classical and Charlotte Mason. A day in the life of our homeschool would clearly show a blend of both of these methods, but the Charlotte Mason method has enriched our homeschool immensely. Homeschooling ADHD with Charlotte Mason is a joy, a beautiful mess of ideas, and an atmosphere of rambunctious learning.