learning differences

Unlocking Potential: How Dyslexia Games Transformed Learning for a South African Family

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Written by Heather Vaught

When traditional schooling failed her son and the pandemic forced shutdowns, Clerissa Kritzinger turned to homeschooling, which ignited a love of learning in her family.

“I was at my wit’s end,” Clerissa Kritzinger recalls. “We had tried everything the traditional system offered, but nothing seemed to work. The tension in our relationship was palpable.”

Clerissa’s journey began with her oldest son’s struggles in school. Despite various therapies and medications for his ADHD diagnosis, his situation didn’t improve. 

The Kritzingers moved Anthony to a tutoring center, hoping that a smaller environment with more one-on-one attention would make a difference. Then facing pandemic-related school closures, Clerissa found herself alone with her son’s reading difficulties.

A Turning Point: Discovering Dyslexia

Homeschooling was not common in South Africa, but with the pandemic, it became a widespread reality. Clerissa found herself with no other choice. She quickly discovered that teachers had been sugar-coating Anthony’s progress, and she was upset. She chose a different curriculum, hoping that would make a difference.

It wasn’t until her friend, Alene, suggested her son might be dyslexic that Clerissa found a new direction. After researching and finding Nessy, a free online dyslexia screening tool, she confirmed her son’s condition. 

“It was a moment of relief and clarity,” she shares. “Finally understanding the cause of my son’s struggles opened up a world of possibilities.”

Alene also recommended Fun-Schooling journals and Dyslexia Games by Sarah Janisse Brown, author and founder of Thinking Tree Books. 

Slow and Steady: The Impact of Dyslexia Games

“You’ve got to be kidding me. How is my kid going to learn to read by doing pictures?” says Clerissa of the moment she first looked through Dyslexia Games. “It did not make sense to me.”

Alene reminded her that her daughter began reading within three months of using Dyslexia Games. “Just trust the process,” she advised.

So Clerissa plowed ahead with assigning her son two pages a day. She was surprised to see him enjoying the games and asking for more pages. His concentration began to improve. 

Then, a month and a half in, Anthony started to pick out random words during daily activities like grocery shopping or playing a game. At three months, Clerissa introduced a phonics program and he took off with it.

“It was like night and day,” Clerissa explains. “He’s never been depressed since we started homeschooling and using Dyslexia Games. The meltdowns that used to happen every single day at school just stopped. Now, his favorite place is the library.”

“The Dyslexia Games approach is so different from traditional methods,” Clerissa notes. “It’s like it speaks directly to the dyslexic brain, creating new neural pathways for learning to read.”

Click here to continue with Clerissa’s story.

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Dyslexia Games: The “Brass Tacks”

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 3 Comments

Three Series of Dyslexia Games

Anna was young when I created Dyslexia Games. Older kids with Dyslexia felt the games I’d created were too easy. I set to work at creating more advanced games. These were helpful both for Anna as she grew and for older children.

Series A is best for children ages 5-8. It can also be used by older children who are profoundly Dyslexic. This series is primarily art-based and introduces a bit of writing and spelling. 

Series B for children aged 8-12. The art-based games become more advanced and more reading skills are required. We also include spelling and copywork in this series.

Series C is for ages 10+. We continue with intricate art-based games, add in some math, and work on cursive writing skills. 

Not Only for Dyslexic Kids

Families began introducing their early readers to series A- regardless of if they showed signs of Dyslexia. Parents realized they made learning to read fun and engaging and that children thrived. Older kids saw Dyslexic siblings working on series B and C and wanted to try them out. It became apparent these games were not only helpful for Dyslexic kids. 

We’ve heard from thousands of families who share remarkable stories about the benefits of Dyslexia Games in their homes. Parents have used Dyslexia Games with:

  • ADHD/ADD kids to help them focus and relax
  • Asperger’s 
  • Autism 
  • Dysgraphia 
  • Dyspraxia 
  • Non-Verbal learning disabilities
  • Visual Processing Disorders
  • As “brain breaks” before working on a more focused/difficult task
  • To de-stress and relax a kid when they were frustrated
  • For relief from Brian Fog
  • To help develop executive functioning skills 
  • Memory support 
  • And more!! 


This was certainly not something I ever expected. At this point, we think we’ve had about as many non-Dyslexic kids use Dyslexia Games as those with Dyslexia. Especially series A for new readers. I began to incorporate pages from these games into some of our Fun-Schooling journals and students have loved having them there.

Click here to continue reading.

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All About Dyslexia Games!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 6 Comments

“She’s almost 9, why can’t she read yet?” After yet another day of watching my daughter Anna struggle to read, I expressed my frustration to my husband. We would eventually come to discover she was Dyslexic. I watched the light go out of her eyes and her love of learning begin to die out. This was something I knew I couldn’t let happen. The journey to help my daughter with Dyslexia would end up helping thousands of adults and children. 

Dyslexia Statistics

Dyslexia is not a struggle unique to Anna. An estimated 20% of children are Dyslexic. The numbers seem to be growing. It’s hard to know if this is because of more awareness or another reason. Regardless, you know and interact with many people who have Dyslexia. Some children will “outgrow” Dyslexia while others will be lifelong Dyslexics.

Dyslexia Games Creation

My quest to help my daughter kept ending at dead ends. None of the products for Dyslexia worked for her or fit our family. I began to think about how Anna noticed b/d/p/q looked exactly the same. As I thought through ways to help her, I turned to her passion- art.

I was homeschooled myself and struggled in school. It’s likely I would have received an Asperger’s diagnosis myself. Awareness of Asperger’s was much lower when I was growing up than it is now so I was overlooked. One of the gifts of Asperger’s is the ability to think outside the box and be creative. Nobody knows their child better than their mother. I knew the answer to helping my daughter learn to read was one I could find.

One afternoon I sat down and started to draw. As I drew, I incorporated letters and words into my artwork. I wanted to see how Anna would respond to words and letters if they were presented as art instead of as a bunch of words on a page. I created puzzles for her to complete and pictures to copy. After I had a few done, I handed them over to her.

Anna loved them and eagerly completed them. But would they help her Dyslexia? After completing several more, she began to read! I made an entire set with different games and activities. Her reading ability increased and she was soon an avid reader who loved to read. Plus she no longer had any symptoms of Dyslexia.

We began selling the PDF version to print at home on our website DyslexiaGames.com and had physical copies printed and shipped by a local print shop at first. When we published Dyslexia Games Series C we switched from the local Print Shop to CreateSpace to drop-ship our books for us.  We also listed the books on Amazon as well. Thus, Dyslexia Games was born. 

Today Dyslexia Games have been used by thousands of children worldwide. We have families on every continent (except Antarctica!) and in dozens of countries. Dyslexia tutors, therapy centers, and schools are using the games with results unlike anything else out there. 

With this post, the journey began…

Is Fun-Schooling for You?

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Fun-Schooling wasn’t designed to work for every family.

So, who does it work for?

Who does it NOT work well for?

Instead of having to give it a try and discover it was a waste of time and money, let’s first get a few things out of the way.

1. Fun-Schooling is not for parents who love testing, grading and correcting their child’s schoolwork in order to make sure their child is standardized.

2. Fun-Schooling is not for parents who believe that education is all about discipline and perfection, all work and no play.

3. Fun-Schooling is not for parents who feel that children should not be allowed to follow their own interests but must study a formal curriculum designed by professionals. If you believe that your child will never be able to teach himself and needs to be taught through rigorous memorization of facts, maybe Fun-Schooling will be a disappointment to you.

4. Fun-Schooling is not for parents who want to play the roles of “teacher and student” rather than “parent and child”. If you want to teach your child every lesson and recreate school at home, maybe Fun-Schooling will not be a good match unless you and your child are both “friend learners or followers”.

5. Fun-Schooling is not usually a good match for parents who plan out every minute of every day to make sure the child stays on task. If giving your child freedom (balanced with responsibility) scares you, don’t Fun-School. You won’t be comfortable.

6. Fun-Schooling doesn’t work well for parents who love teacher’s keys and multiple choice workbooks with answers in the back. Our journals are very open ended and there are no answers keys or teacher’s guides. Why? Because the books are based on research and curiosity so one page in a Fun-Schooling Journal will be one-of-a-kind when a child completes the activities. For example the Journal may prompt them to choose their favorite extinct animal and write down four interesting things about it. Trust me. An answer key would not be helpful because your child’s answer is completely unpredictable.

7. Fun-Schooling is not for parents who do not appreciate creativity, imagination and fun. Seriously there are zillions of parents and teachers who work hard to keep schooling serious. If you are this kind of parent/teacher don’t waste your hard earned money and precious time on Thinking Tree books.

Was this helpful? Is Fun-Schooling for you? Click here to learn more about How to Flip to Fun-Schooling!

The “Waiting Room” of the Mind

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment
the waiting room of the mind

QUESTION: A mom in our homeschool group ordered one of the spelling books and commented that it seemed very simple, especially with some pages being just coloring. I remember that Sarah said something about the purpose of the coloring pages in the book… like downtime for the brain to process what it has learned. Does anybody know what I’m referring to?

ANSWER: When you learn something new, the brain stores it in “the waiting room” before sending it into long term memory. The brain needs to take time to process new things and store them properly so the new things can be retrieved in the future. If you move from one activity to the next, and don’t have downtime to process and reflect on new information, the waiting room gets really crowded and the brain starts to dump many of the new things into the trash, to make room for more information in the waiting room.

The waiting room does not have a lot of storage space, so the brain needs to process the information, and make room for more. Some things take just as long to process as they take to learn.

In the old days people used to learn a little and then do necessary work just to keep life on track. A lot of that work is thoughtless, like washing dishes and pulling weeds. You don’t need to “think” to pull weeds, so the brain takes that time to deal with all the new things in the “waiting room”.

There are a few things we need to do to learn AND REMEMBER new information:

1. We need to be introduced to new information.

2. We need to be curious about it.

3. We need to engage in it, and research it.

4. We need to use the new information.

5. We need to SHARE and talk about the new information.

6. We need to reflect on and ponder new information.

7. We need to get creative with the new information.

8. We need to attach emotions, experiences, stories and memories to the information. (click here to continue reading)

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Work or Play? Why not BOTH?

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment

Whenever my kids are playing hard and having the BIGGEST fun doing whatever kids do, when no one is telling them what to do I always ask them, “What are you working on?”  I use the word “WORKING”.  I call their activity a PROJECT.   They never say “Nothing, I’m just playing.”  No, they go into a detailed description of something amazing, that starts with: “I’m trying to build a… I’m figuring out how to… I am making a…  I’m taking this thing apart… I’m putting together a new!”

When they are playing they are often doing work that is very meaningful and important in their eyes.  I have a daughter who was always very, very busy, I was always trying to pull her away from her “play” as if it were a waste of time, because I didn’t yet see the value of play. After all, she was 9 and should be doing things that look like school. She knew how to read and write, and she was always in her own world.

One day it was raining outside and she was looking out the window.  She had been there for a long time. She was supposed to be in the school room with her science book.  I was about to tell her to stop sitting around and get back to work.  Then I noticed she had a notebook with all these strange little marks, pictures, checks and numbers.  So I asked, “What are you doing?”

“Oh, I was just charting the storm, timing the lighting and the thunder and measuring sound and distance.  I’ve been charting the weather for about a month.”

I started unschooling that child on that day, and at that point I began to ask my kids what they are working on when they seem to be playing or busy.  They always amaze me with their answers.I couldn’t find anything in the 3rd grade school books that could have been more educational and meaningful than the research our daughter had been doing on her own. I just began to ask more often what she was working on and then I began doing everything I could to support those interests. She is the one who recently gave me the ideas for the 10- and 12-Subject Portfolios! I think it is funny that my unschooled child would be the one to want to design such a structured subject-by-subject learning plan for herself!

She has learned so much about so many subjects over the years and now she wants to put all her knowledge together in a Portfolio that is well organized. 

All of my children need differing amounts of structure, motivation, instruction, teaching, guidance, assignments, evaluation, and follow-up with their learning.  They are all unique.  My dyslexics need a lot of my help and investment when it comes to learning to read, write, and spell.  Dyslexia Games makes it easy, now that it exists. (continue reading by clicking Page 2 below)

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