Troubleshooting Struggles with Reading During the Summer

Reading during the summer is a great chance to really get a sense of how your child is progressing (and potentially troubleshoot some struggles before next school year). Whether you’re doing a formal summer reading program (like this one) or just watching your child as they read around the house, here are some warning signs to watch for that additional support and intervention may be necessary.

Lack of Interest or Avoidance Behaviors

Signs to Watch For:

• Finding every excuse NOT to read
• Needing reminders to pick up a book
• Not being able to find any books that catch their attention
• Only gravitating towards super easy books that are far below their grade level
• Vocal disinterest in reading (i.e., saying they “hate” it)

What Could Be Going On Under the Surface:

A lack of interest in reading almost always stems from weakness in core reading skills. After all, if something is hard, it’s in our nature to try to avoid or to dislike it. When your child consistently lacks confidence in reading, says how much they dislike it, or avoids it at all costs, it’s worth digging deeper: what skill deficits are making it so hard for your child to engage with texts?

Dig Deeper: Weak Cognitive Skills & Reading Struggles >>

Poor Comprehension

Signs to Watch For:

• Not being able to answer questions about what they’re reading
• Needing to reread frequently because they missed a key detail
• Incorrect understanding of setting, story, or characters
• Disinterest in reading (if they’re not comprehending, they’re not going to enjoy it)

What Could Be Going On Under the Surface:

Poor reading comprehension stems from a foundational aspect of reading not being as strong as it should be. When you think of reading skills like a pyramid, comprehension is at the top: it’s the goal, but a lot of things need to be in place before you can get there.

For example, kids need to have strong phonics, phonemic awareness, and auditory processing skills to accurately sound out the words. Then they have to have strong visualization skills to be able to make a “mental movie” where they can “see” what is happening. They need to have strong processing speed and fluency so this happens efficiently, and they need adequate vocabulary or reasoning skills to figure out what key words mean.

These are just a few of the pieces of the puzzle. If your child struggles with reading comprehension, it’s important to dig deeper and figure out why because as they progress in school, this skill becomes all the more important. 

Slow Reading Speed or Lack of Fluency

Signs to Watch For:

• Taking a long time to read books
• Choppy reading when they read out loud
• Stopping and starting at odd places within a passage
• Not being able to read street signs as you pass them
• Lack of comprehension because they forget what they’ve read

What Could Be Going On Under the Surface:

If you notice your child taking a long time with reading over the summer, it’s worth investigating the reason for their struggle. Yes, practice is an important part of building fluency and confidence with reading, but if, for example, their processing speed is super weak, no amount of practice is going to compensate for that struggle.

Read more about tips for building reading fluency here >>

Distractibility or Skipping Around

Signs to Watch For:

• Frequently zoning out or daydreaming while reading 
• Skipping lines, sentences, or pages while reading (and not noticing)
• Needing complete quiet in order to be able to focus

What Could Be Going On Under the Surface:

Struggles with attention and consistency in reading are common as kids become more independent readers. However, helping them foster these underlying skills both in the summer and the school year will help them continue to progress as readers!

If your child struggles to stay engaged, use timers to gradually increase the amount of time you ask them to focus on reading. If the issue is skipping around, you can have them read out loud—skipping is much more noticeable if you’re really hearing it!

Overcoming Struggles with Reading

If you’re noticing struggles in any of these areas over the summer months, they are likely not going to go away when the new school year comes around. As subjects become more complex and rely on “reading to learn” (instead of “learning to read,”) kids who struggle with reading often fall further behind not because of that specific subject but because of reading deficits.

Becoming a confident reader requires more than just solid reading instruction and practice: you need to have the cognitive foundation to make the connections between words and stories or facts to comprehend what’s really going on. If your child struggles with reading, more time isn’t what’s going to help it click. Targeted intervention for their unique cognitive weaknesses is the best way to see measurable improvements in their reading skills quickly!

Learn more about our research-based reading skills program here >>