What to do when your child is struggling with reading
In short
Find out exactly where reading breaks down, usually letter sounds or blending. Teach that skill directly for 15 to 20 minutes a day for 6 to 8 weeks and keep notes. If progress is slow, ask the school in writing for an evaluation by a qualified professional.
How do you know your child is struggling?
Every child has hard days. A real struggle shows up as a pattern that lasts for weeks. These are common signs:
- Guessing words from the first letter or the picture, instead of reading every letter.
- Sounding out the same word again on every page, as if they never saw it.
- Reading very slowly, with lots of stops, well after classmates speed up.
- Spelling that does not match the sounds, like "bt" for "bit" past the start of first grade.
- Avoiding reading: stomach aches at reading time, or "I'm tired" every evening.
- Being good at talking and stories, but stuck on print.
What usually causes a reading struggle?
Most reading trouble starts with words: turning letters into sounds and blending them. Understanding usually comes later, once words are read accurately. Here are the common causes, roughly in order of how often parents run into them:
| Cause | What you might see |
|---|---|
| Gaps in phonics | Knows some patterns, not others; misreads vowels |
| Guessing habit | Looks at pictures, says a word that makes sense but is wrong |
| Weak sound skills | Can't split "map" into three sounds or say it without /m/ |
| Not enough practice | Accurate but slow; reads fine once warmed up |
| Vision or hearing | Squints, holds books close, often says "what?" |
| Attention | Knows the skill but loses focus after a minute or two |
| Dyslexia | Slow progress despite good teaching, often runs in families |
Rule out the simple things first. Ask your pediatrician for a vision and hearing check if one hasn't been done in the past year.
How can you find where reading breaks down?
Try a quick check at home. It takes about ten minutes and gives you a starting point. Write each item on a card and note which ones your child gets wrong.
- Letter sounds: show all 26 letters, mixed up. Ask for the sound each one makes.
- Blending: say /f/ /i/ /sh/ and ask for the word. Try five words.
- Short words: have your child read 10 made-up words like "vog" and "tep". This shows real decoding, since they can't be remembered.
- Longer patterns: try words with sh, ch, silent e, and vowel teams like "rain".
- A short passage: listen for guesses, skipped words and how smooth it sounds.
Start teaching at the first step that falls apart. If your child misses six letter sounds, start there, even if they are in second grade.
What can you try at home for 6 to 8 weeks?
Pick the weakest skill and teach it directly every day. Keep lessons short and steady. A good daily plan for a struggling reader looks like this:
- 3 minutes: review letter sounds or patterns your child knows.
- 5 minutes: teach or practice the weak skill with lots of turns.
- 5 minutes: spell words with that skill from dictation.
- 5 minutes: read a decodable text that uses the skill.
Write down each day what you did, plus one or two words that were hard. Every two weeks, repeat part of the home check. You want to see clear gains. If after 6 to 8 weeks there is little change, that is useful information, and it is time to ask for more help.
How do you talk to your child about it?
Children who struggle often decide they are "bad at reading" or "dumb". They are neither. Say it plainly and often.
- Child
- I'm just bad at reading.
- Parent
- Reading is a skill, like riding a bike. Some kids need more practice to get it. You're learning the pieces one at a time.
- Child
- But my friend reads chapter books.
- Parent
- Your friend learned some pieces sooner. Look how many words you can read now that you couldn't in September.
How do you ask the school for an evaluation?
Write a short, dated letter or email to the principal and your child's teacher. Say that you are requesting a full evaluation for special education services because of concerns about reading. List what you have seen and what you have tried, with dates.
Under US federal law, the school must respond to a written request. If it agrees to evaluate, you will be asked to sign consent, and the evaluation then has a time limit set by federal or state rules. Keep copies of everything.
Bring your notes from home. A log showing what you taught, for how long, and how your child did is often more useful than any single test score.
Is it dyslexia?
Only a qualified professional, such as a school psychologist or a licensed psychologist, can evaluate for dyslexia. What you can do is notice the signs and keep teaching. Children with dyslexia learn to read with direct, structured phonics teaching. They usually need more of it, and more review, than other children.
Don't wait for a label to start helping. The teaching that works for dyslexia is the same explicit phonics that helps any struggling reader.
Questions people ask
Will my child grow out of a reading problem?
Should I hire a tutor?
How long does it take a struggling reader to catch up?
Do glasses or colored overlays fix reading?
Sources
- Snow, Burns and Griffin, eds. (1998), Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, National Academies Press
- National Reading Panel (2000), Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups
- Juel (1988), Learning to read and write: a longitudinal study of 54 children from first through fourth grades, Journal of Educational Psychology
- Castles, Rastle and Nation (2018), Ending the reading wars: reading acquisition from novice to expert, Psychological Science in the Public Interest