Top Tips and Resources

Top Tips for Supporting Learning for Children and Adults with Communication, Learning and Understanding Difficulties.

Understand Individual Needs Thoroughly

Gather information from assessments, teachers, therapists, or family.
Be aware of specific difficulties (e.g., speech, language, memory, processing, attention).
Tailor activities to cognitive levels rather than age alone.

Use Clear, Simple Communication

Use short, concrete sentences.
Repeat and rephrase key points.
Pair verbal instructions with visual cues (pictures, symbols, gestures).
Confirm understanding by asking the learner to repeat instructions in their own words.

Break Tasks Into Manageable Steps

Present one instruction at a time.
Use checklists, visual timetables, or step-by-step guides.
Celebrate completion of each step to build confidence.

Make Learning Multisensory

Combine visual, auditory, and tactile learning.
Use physical objects, manipulatives, or interactive technology.
Incorporate movement where possible to maintain engagement.

Encourage Active Participation

Offer choices to empower learners.
Include collaborative or paired activities.
Use games, role-play, or real-life simulations to reinforce concepts.

Provide Consistency and Predictability

Use routines to reduce anxiety.
Keep learning spaces organized and free from distractions.
Maintain consistent language and symbols for instructions.

Foster Communication Skills

Encourage use of AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) devices if needed.
Model vocabulary and sentence structures.
Be patient, give processing time, and avoid finishing sentences for the learner.

Promote Understanding Through Repetition and Practice

Repeat key concepts in different ways.
Reinforce learning through real-life contexts.
Review prior learning before introducing new material.

Support Emotional Wellbeing

Respond positively to attempts at communication.
Recognise frustration; provide breaks when needed.

Collaborate With Families and Professionals

Involve caregivers, therapists, or support workers in planning.
Share strategies to reinforce learning across settings.
Seek guidance from speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, or educational psychologists.

Recommended Resources

General Learning Support

SEND Gateway (UK) – Advice on supporting children with learning differences.
Mencap – Resources for people with learning disabilities.
National Autistic Society – Guidance for learners with autism.
NASEN – Professional and parent support for SEN/learning difficulties.

Communication Tools

Widgit Symbols – Visual symbols for instruction and communication.
Boardmaker – Visual supports and communication aids.
Proloquo2Go / TalkTablet – AAC apps for children and adults.

Adaptive Learning Platforms

BBC Bitesize SEND – Tailored lessons for learners with special educational needs.
Twinkl SEN Resources – Worksheets, visual aids, and lesson plans for SEND

Support for Adults

Adult Learning with SEND (Local Colleges) – Adult courses designed for learners with learning difficulties.
MindEd – Online training for carers and educators supporting adults with cognitive differences.
Skills for Life (UK) – Literacy, numeracy, and functional skills adapted for learning difficulties.

About

Dice Flashcards

"Hi, I'm Alison the founder of Diceflashcards.com"

“For almost 30 years now, I’ve been supporting children and adults around the UK, across a wide range of settings and in the home.

In that time, I’ve utilised many different play based teaching aides and resources available, but one very simple toy always stands out for me above the rest.

EDUCATIONAL FOAM POCKET DICE…

(Also known as ‘Learning or Language Dice Cubes’)

So just why is that?

In addition to their simplicity to use, striking colours and light weight handling, I believe it’s quite simply the instant excitment the create from the unpredicatable ‘roll of the dice’!

It’s genuinely no coincidence why nearly every board game ever made uses a form of dice to play for the exact same reason, it’s exciting unpredictability.

As with both children and adults, if something is fun or exciting we tend to focus more and pay attention for longer. That’s why I’ve personally seen a consistent marked increase, in both focus and engagement every time I use Foam Dice with both individual 1 to 1 or group sessions.

For me, introducing these simple education toys in my sessions was a total game changer!

PLUS – In the classroom or at home, where every second counts, any game activity that is ready to play with in seconds, is a guaranteed win-win especially with teaching staff, parents and professionals alike and Foam Dice tick all of these boxes.”

What are Educational Foam Pocket Dice?

Educational Foam Pocket Dice have been around for many years and are widely used by:

Nurseries
Pre-Schools
Schools
Parents / Grandparents
Care Professionals
Speech and Language Therapists

This is because they are incredibly versatile and have many key qualities as a fully inclusive education toy.

They are very visually stimulating and ergonomically designed like soft play toys, so they are lightweight and easy to handle with varied physical abilities.

They have clear plastic pockets on every face / side, which means they have limitless interchangable faces, so your content / theme can be never ending.

This means, most importanly, they are scaleable to the participants age and ability so can also progress as a learning tool as they develop and progress too.

Simply combine them with attractive age/developmental stage appropriate pitcure inserts and targeted activity games based on individual ability and they instantly become a very effect learning opportunity, especially when supporting language development.

Start with one dice and theme for simple games and then add additional dice with different themes for more challenging tasks like sentence building and story creation etc.

What are Diceflashcards?

They were actually born out of frustration after searching everywhere for ready-made picture insert cards for my own foam dice and sadly never finding any.

So, after literally years of thinking up fun interactive dice activities for my own classrooms, followed by countless hours at home manually hand drawing hundreds of my own pictures, before attempting to cut them out just hoping they fit my dice, I thought there has to be a better way of doing this.

So a few years ago, I began the mammoth task of slowly digitsing all my previous hand created work to date, to save me precious time in the future repeating the manual creation process on loop. I also made sure that every image was inside a pre-sized box so it’s much easier to cut and fit everytime removing all the guess work.

The result 650 pre-sized full colour flashcards ready to just PRINT, CUT and PLAY.

I know first hand, both as a parent but especially over my decades in education, finding time to think up, let alone create resources, is almost non- existent, so by creating Diceflashcards.com hopefully it can also help you save that valuable time to concentrate on precious teaching time instead.

What I love most about Diceflashcards, is that the activity / lesson potential is only limited by your own imagination when it comes to the picture inserts and activity games you can play.

Whatever ideas you come up with can work, from simple name games, sentence building, creating stories, draw what you see type activities or even acting out the picture.

To help you get started on the right track, even with no prior experience, EVERY single pack also comes with 10x FREE fun activities + a FREE BONUS GIFT of a blank set of pre-sized squares for you to print off and draw your own pictures if you wish.

Multi-purpose

No Dice??… No Problem!!

Although primarily designed specifically to insert into Foam Pocket Dice, they can also be used as standalone Flashcards, Bingo Cards, Fishing Games, Find the … Games and Matching Pairs etc. making them fully multi-purpose.

So if you don’t already have any foam dice, you can still use our Flashcards for multiple activities with or without the dice.

However if you want to increase your game excitment to the max, foam dice are available to buy in our shop here

What type of Flashcards are available?

The Diceflashcards.com current library has 650 ready-made, instantly downloadable, interchangeable flashcard inserts already pre-sized to fit foam pocket dice.

They are available to download in 40x different individual themed packs. Each pack contains at least 12 or more flashcards + 10 Free activity game ideas + FREE ‘Draw your own’ blank grid.

The lists of individual packs are found in the following categories:

From just £1.79 per pack of 12 Flashcards including 2x FREE GIFTS + additional discount offers!

Affordable, quick solution, designed to save you time!

Dice Flashcards download packs are designed to save you time manually creating your own and start at just £1.79 per pack of 12 Picture inserts (2x complete dice sets).

In addition to this every single pack comes with 10x FREE activity game ideas as mentioned + a bonus gift of a FREE blank presized GRID for you to print out and create your own picture inserts as many times as you like.

Buy More - SAVE More!

To make them as affordable as possible, if you want more than just the odd individual pack, you will save an additional 20% of the cost of buying individual packs, when buying a whole category set. So rather than pay the individual price, if you buy the ‘CATEGORY SET’, you will get all themed packs within that set while saving 20% of the cost.

Or the best saving of all in our online shop, if you buy the ‘ENTIRE LIBRARY SET’ containing all 650 Flashcards, in their 40 individual themed packs you can save a HUGE 50% of the cost of buying all 40 individual packs a few at a time.

Perfect for busy classrooms, nurseries and pretty much anyone who wants to have as much topic variety as possible, without running short of flashcards!

Key Educational Benefits

Encourages Vocabulary Growth

Inserts can display pictures, words or symbols, allowing children to match words with images or create stories around them
Parents, caregivers, educators and professionals can easily swap inserts to focus on different themes (eg. animals, emotions, actions etc.) Reinforcing new vocabulary in context

Promotes Oral Language & Communication

Dice games prompt turn-taking, asking questions and giving responses, all of which build conversational skills.
Children can describe what they see, make up sentences or create stories based on the insert shown, enhancing creative imagination and expressive language.

Supports Phonological & Literacy Awareness

Inserts with letters, rhyming words, phonemes and graphemes help children play with sounds and word patterns, supporting early reading skills.
Identifying the initial sounds with dice play makes phonics practice more engaging

Fosters Social Interaction

Dice games are inherently collabortive, encouraging children to listen, take turns and negotiate game rules, which all strengthen pragmatic language use.
These interactions naturally provide opportunities for modelling and scaffolding by adults or peers leading the play session.

Enhances Engagement & Motivation

The hands-on playful unpredictable nature of foam dice keeps children active and focused.
The customisable inserts make learning fully adaptable to each childs individual level, supporting inclusion.

Supports Multimodal Learning

HAND MOVEMENT (e.g rolling the dice, gesture, actions)
SIGHT (observing the dice roll, looking at the images, reading the text)
SPEECH/VERBALISATIONS(talking about the insert, creating sounds)

All reinforce language learning across multiple sensory channels.