Why Some Kids Struggle With Reading

Lots of kids struggle with reading, yet many parents still feel isolated and alone. Your child may be performing below standards in school, struggling with homework, or even feeling embarrassed by their own inability to read fluently. 

For some kids, reading is just hard. It doesn’t “click.” It doesn’t “make sense.” And for many parents, this becomes a major source of stress and desperation to find something—anything—that will help your struggling reader succeed.

Before you invest in more tutors or other interventions, let’s talk a little bit about what causes these reading struggles to happen in the first place. Reading is not an isolated skill; instead, it’s complex and requires several different areas of the brain to work together efficiently.

Your child’s reading struggles may present one way, while your friend’s child’s struggle looks totally different… but the root of it is that these kids are having a hard time because certain brain skills are not as strong as they could be. 

Getting to the root cause of these reading struggles will help you target the weak skills so your child can experience success faster and more easily (without endless trial and error on your end)!

Reading Struggles Can Result From…

Low Logic & Reasoning Skills

Your brain’s ability to problem-solve, reach conclusions, and logically process situations greatly impacts your ability to read. Reading struggles rooted in low logic & reasoning may look like:

• Not being able to figure out a word based on pictures or context
• Struggling to understand basic phonics, reading, or spelling rules and when to apply them
• Having trouble figuring out new words (but still managing with sight words or familiar texts)
• Being a “guesser” instead of trying to figure out what the words actually say

If your child has low logic & reasoning, they will also likely struggle with math or other subject areas that require problem-solving and planning skills. 

Weak Visual Processing

Visual processing is your brain’s ability to take in visual stimuli and interpret and manipulate it. If your child struggles visually, their reading struggles may look like:

• Frequently mis-reading letters or words that look similar
• Struggling to visually track along a line in a book without assistance
• Getting overwhelmed by too much text in front of them (because they can’t visually select where they should focus)

Slow Processing Speed

Processing speed is one of those skills that impacts every area of life. Thinking quickly while reading is a vital tool for reading comprehension. Not only does your brain have to quickly take in what the word says, it has to apply meaning and build a visual image to help you comprehend it. For many students with low processing speed, reading struggles look like:

• Lack of fluency (frequent stops and starts)
• Trouble decoding new words 
• Poor reading comprehension

Low Auditory Processing

Auditory processing is one of the most foundational skills for learning to read. It is your brain’s ability to hear a word or sound and be able to segment, blend, replace, or change it into different words or forms. If your child struggles with auditory processing, common reading pitfalls will be:

• Inability to blend a word based on its sounds
• Trouble with rhyming, identifying first/last/middle sounds, and other sound recognition tasks
• Poor reading fluency with constant stops to re-sound-out even familiar words
• Struggling with reading comprehension

Working Memory Struggles

Working memory is the short-term ability of your brain to hold onto a piece of information long enough to use it. In reading, this looks like remembering the sounds in a word OR the words in a sentence long enough to grasp meaning. 

For kids with ADHD in particular, low working memory can make all school tasks more difficult, but especially reading. Low working memory is actually a foundational root cause of many of the symptoms we attribute to ADHD in kids. 

Common reading struggles for kids with low working memory include:

• Forgetting what they had just read (so they are constantly going back and re-reading or just not understanding the text at all)
• Trouble with segmenting, blending, or decoding longer words
• Figuring out a word and then not remembering it the next time it shows up (even if it’s just a sentence or 2 later)
• Lack of comprehension and motivation for reading

What WON’T Solve Your Struggling Reader’s Problems: Waiting it Out

Reading problems don’t just go away on their own. Giving it time, waiting for your child to mature, and trying out other curricula for a little while really just delay getting your child the help they need. 

Studies show that in kids with dyslexia or other reading struggles, age does not make the problem go away. Instead, approaching your child’s reading struggles from the root cause (weak cognitive skills) will be what can make all the difference!

What WILL Help Improve Reading Skills

A root-cause approach is always best. For cognitive skills, this means training and strengthening the places where your child’s brain struggles most. Some ways to do this include:

Playing Games. 

Games are a great low-pressure way to strengthen reading and spelling skills (and other cognitive skills at the same time). Here’s a list of some of our favorite reading games and how you can modify them for struggling readers!

Just Read Something (Even if it’s “below grade level”). 

This is ideal to do during these summer months. If your child can’t read on grade level, during the summer just focus on reading books that ARE on their level. Helping reading to feel fun and accessible is essential to building your child’s own motivation to succeed. During the school year, incorporating level-appropriate books can help them feel successful instead of always “behind,” “slow,” or “stupid.”

Targeted Training of Weak Skills. 

When you strain a muscle or want to strengthen one particular area of your body, you don’t just keep running and hoping it’ll work. You work with a personal trainer that is skilled at identifying your weak points and helping you get stronger.

This is what brain training does! Instead of a content-approach, our approach to reading help focuses on the skills your brain uses to think, learn, and remember in a way that is customizable to your needs. It is both intense and fun in a way that exercises your child’s reading skills to help them become stronger and more confident readers!

Even before any of these steps, it’s important to know which skill area needs to be targeted.

Understanding exactly which cognitive skills are weak for your child can help explain their struggles in reading (and other areas) AND open the door so you can know how to help them most easily.

Our cognitive skills assessment provides an inside look into the way your child’s brain works so you can find the sticking point that is making reading and learning harder than it needs to be. Call us today to get on our schedule, or click here and scroll down to “Book an Assessment” to pick a time that works for you!