Multisensory Strategies and Dyslexia: How to Engage Your 3- to 12-Year-Old Differently

Understanding the Power of the Senses

You're watching your child sit at the table, pencil in hand, eyes full of frustration. You've tried flashcards, reading out loud, even reward charts. Still, the words seem to swim on the page, and your once-curious child grows quieter each day. If this scene feels familiar, you're not alone—and there’s no one-size-fits-all fix. But there is hope in a different and increasingly powerful approach: the multisensory path.

Multisensory learning isn’t a buzzword. It’s a research-backed method shown to help children who struggle with reading and dyslexia by engaging more than one sense at a time—touch, sound, movement, sight—to make learning not just possible, but enjoyable.

What Does "Multisensory" Actually Mean?

Conventional learning often relies heavily on visual processing—reading text, watching instruction. But many children, especially those with dyslexia, process information more effectively when it’s presented through multiple senses. For example, hearing a word while tracing its letters in sand helps the brain build stronger associations.

Think of it like this: if you’re learning to dance, you wouldn’t just watch someone else do it. You’d listen to the music, move your body, and feel the rhythm. Learning to read can work the same way.

Beginning with Small Shifts at Home

You're not expected to recreate a special education classroom in your living room, but even small, thoughtful adjustments can make a big difference.

Let’s say your 8-year-old resists reading time. Instead of pushing through a book, try giving them a wide paintbrush and a window surface to "paint" their spelling words with water. Or record your voice reading a short paragraph and let them follow along, touching each word as they listen. These hands-on, multi-pathway experiences are effective because they meet your child where they’re strongest—and slowly build from there.

Using Sound as a Pathway to Stories

One of the most underutilized senses in learning is hearing. For children with dyslexia, auditory storytelling can unlock an entire world—and reinforce language patterns, structure, and comprehension.

Listening to stories isn’t "cheating." In fact, it can actively support reading development. As research shows, children who hear rich, complex stories regularly often improve their vocabulary and story comprehension, which later transfers back to reading skills. For children who shut down at the sight of printed words, this can be an important bridge.

Apps like LISN Kids, available on iOS and Android, offer a library of original audiobooks and series designed for kids aged 3 to 12. The stories are imaginative, age-aligned, and can be integrated into your daily routine—during breakfast, after school, or even just before bed. Even better, these audio experiences can help children fall in love with stories again, even if they're struggling with text.

To learn more about how listening can help develop literacy, check out this article on listening and reading comprehension.

Letting the Body Lead

Some children need to move to learn. Kinesthetic learners—often misunderstood as figety or unfocused—actually process information best through motion. That means spelling words while jumping, reciting times tables on a walk, or learning directions while drawing a map on a trampoline might be much more effective than quiet desk time.

Movement doesn’t just help with focus; it actually enhances memory by stimulating neural connections across multiple brain areas. For children working through dyslexia or other language-based obstacles, these physical anchors create strong, memorable pathways to learning.

Fostering Emotional Safety

When a child experiences daily failures with reading, spelling, or math, the emotional toll adds up quickly. Over time, reluctance can become shame—and shame can become refusal.

Multisensory learning can help here too, not just by making progress possible but by reducing the fear of getting it wrong. When children are allowed to explore in creative, body-based, and low-stakes ways, their confidence has room to return.

If your child shows signs of anxiety, frustration, or even sadness around schoolwork, it’s important to validate their feelings first. There are helpful ways to support a dyslexic child's emotional relationship with school that go beyond academics—and they often begin with empathy and flexibility.

Patience, Progress, and Perspective

Some days will be messy. Some strategies will flop. But what matters most is that your child knows they are not broken—and that learning differently is not a deficit, but an opportunity to discover what actually works for them.

For children who are hesitant readers, multisensory methods offer a way back into a world of imagination and capability. To keep that love of learning alive, consider these helpful approaches:

• Present stories through multiple senses—sight, sound, touch, movement
• Alternate traditional reading tasks with auditory or tactile versions
• Celebrate process over perfection
• Stay curious about what engages your child most organically

And remember—it's possible to nurture a deep, resilient love of narrative even when reading is hard. For more insights on keeping children connected to story, don't miss this guide about kids who love stories but struggle with reading, or this article about tackling shame and avoidance.

Every child deserves to access the joy of learning—and sometimes, the road there looks a little different. Different doesn’t mean wrong. It just means discovering what truly works.