Home Economics

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Home Economics – Supporting Dyslexic Students

Introduction

Home Economics combines theoretical knowledge with practical skills across areas such as nutrition, textiles, consumer studies, and social responsibility. For students with dyslexia, the subject’s blend of reading, writing, numerical work, and practical tasks can present challenges, but also offers opportunities for hands-on, multisensory learning.

Success in Home Economics can be supported by teaching approaches that reduce text load, reinforce key concepts visually and practically, and allow for varied ways of demonstrating understanding.

Key Areas to Support Learning

  • Support with reading and making sense of detailed written instructions, such as recipes, patterns, or consumer guidelines.
  • Strategies to assist with spelling and remembering subject-specific vocabulary.
  • Guidance in sequencing steps for practical tasks like food preparation or textile work.
  • Help with understanding and applying measurement units and managing budgeting activities.
  • Techniques to support recall and understanding of definitions and theoretical concepts.
  • Scaffolding to build skills in planning, structuring, and writing assignments or exam-style responses.

Practical Teaching Strategies

  • Break down instructions into simple, sequenced steps: Use visual guides, diagrams, and bullet points for recipes, tasks, or routines (e.g. cleaning, meal prep, sewing a seam).
  • Provide writing frames or sentence starters:  Support written tasks such as evaluations, design briefs, or nutritional analysis with templates and structured prompts.
  • Incorporate multisensory learning:  Use hands-on activities (e.g. cooking, textile work), tactile materials, visual diagrams, labelled tools, food models, and real-life demonstrations. Reinforce concepts through taste tests, smell identification, and product comparison.
  • Apply Universal Design for Learning (UDL):  Offer content through multiple means (e.g. video demonstrations, audio instructions, interactive slides), and allow different ways of showing learning (e.g. photo journals of practical work, oral presentations, diagrams). Let students choose between written reports or visual portfolios when appropriate.
  • Use assistive technology:  Support writing and reading with text-to-speech, voice typing, and digital graphic organisers. Use apps or websites for planning meals, calculating budgets, or exploring healthy eating.
  • Model exemplar answers and processes:  Show samples of previous students’ CBAs, textile projects, journal work and exam answers. Highlight what makes them successful and break down the structure clearly.
  • Use repetition and retrieval:  Revisit key processes (e.g. food hygiene steps, parts of a pattern) and concepts (e.g. balanced diet, consumer rights) using retrieval practice, games, or classroom displays.
  • Teach active reading strategies:  Highlight and annotate key words in recipes, patterns, or legislation extracts. Teach scanning and skimming techniques to manage dense text.
  • Build visual and practical supports: Use labelled diagrams (e.g. the food pyramid, sewing machine parts), charts, and posters. Create classroom displays of common tools, ingredients, and techniques.
  • Chunk larger tasks:  Break up assignments (e.g. project work, design briefs) into clear stages with time checkpoints and guidance for each phase.
  • Support drafting and planning: Encourage mind mapping, oral planning, or using checklists before beginning writing. Use peer or teacher feedback in a structured, visual way.
  • Teach memory strategies: Use mnemonics, rhyming patterns, and repetition to help students remember key vocabulary.
  • Incorporate group work: Give students the opportunity to do Think-Pair-Shares with their peers to offer to reinforce learning in a supportive way, assign clear roles (e.g. speaker, researcher, scribe, time-keeper).

Tools & Resources

Contact & Support

  • Use your school’s Student Support File to personalise learning goals and supports.
  • Liaise with your school’s AEN / SEN Coordinator for additional adjustments or accommodations.
  • Dyslexia Ireland:  www.dyslexia.ie 
  • National Council for Special Education (NCSE):  www.ncse.ie

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