Watch for THESE Warning Signs of Reading Struggles
Reading is an essential skill for academic success and lifelong learning. But for some students, reading can be a frustrating challenge. Early detection of reading struggles is critical to provide effective support and prevent long-term academic setbacks. Here are five warning signs of reading struggles, what they might mean, and practical ways to help your child improve.
5 Warning Signs of Reading Struggles:
1. Avoidance of Reading
Does your child resist reading assignments or avoid reading altogether? This behavior can be a red flag that reading feels too difficult or stressful. Kids who struggle with reading may find it exhausting and frustrating, meaning they don’t fully comprehend what they’re reading or they grow mentally fatigued trying to process the words in front of them.
Read More: Signs of Weak Reading Comprehension & Ways to Ignite a Love of Reading >>
Possible Causes:
- Weak decoding skills
- Poor phonemic awareness
- Difficulty sustaining attention
- Lack of comprehension skills (including the ability to visualize a story)
How to Help:
- Make reading enjoyable by offering books on topics your child loves.
- Break reading tasks into smaller, manageable chunks with breaks and rewards built in.
- Address the root cause by strengthening decoding and attention skills through cognitive training programs like LearningRx.
2. Guessing Unknown Words
If your child frequently guesses words instead of decoding them, it may indicate weak phonics skills. For example, they might substitute a word with a similar-looking or contextually related one. For younger kids, they may try to rely on pictures to fill in the words they don’t know, but this strategy won’t continue to work as texts get more complex and pictures diminish.
Possible Causes:
- Weak phonological awareness and inability to decode unknown words
- Limited sight word recognition and poor long term memory of commonly-occuring words
- Poor impulse control and struggling to slow down to actually look at the words
How to Help:
- Practice phonics-based exercises to build word decoding skills.
- Play games (like these) that reinforce sound-letter connections.
- Use brain training exercises designed to improve auditory processing and memory. (Why auditory processing? Here’s why that skill is so important for reading confidence.)
3. Poor Spelling
Spelling struggles often go hand-in-hand with reading difficulties. Misspelled words and inconsistencies in putting words on paper can be signs of weak visual processing, phonological awareness, working memory, and other essential cognitive skills.
Possible Causes:
- Difficulty identifying sound-letter relationships
- Weak visual or long-term memory
- Poor sequential processing and working memory (losing their place in the word or leaving out syllables or sounds)
How to Help:
- Use multisensory methods to practice spelling, such as tracing words in sand or using magnetic letters.
- Encourage frequent writing practice, paired with proofreading for errors.
- Target deficiencies in auditory processing, phonological awareness, working memory, and/or visual processing with targeted brain training activities.
Side Note: Does Spelling Really Matter?
While some argue that spelling proficiency is growing obsolete because of the increase in spell check and most work being digitized, mastering spelling concepts is foundational for confident reading and comprehension. So much meaning is built into the spelling of words and understanding their parts (like root words, prefixes, and suffixes), and incorrectly interpreting a word because of a spelling error could be highly problematic!
4. Lack of Comprehension
Some students can read fluently but fail to grasp the meaning of what they’ve read. Poor comprehension skills may stem from a difficulty with visual processing (envisioning the story in your head), long term memory (retaining information), understanding vocabulary, or a combination of other factors.
Possible Causes:
- Weak working memory
- Limited vocabulary
- Trouble making inferences or connecting ideas
- Poor visualization skills
How to Help:
- Encourage your child to summarize passages in their own words.
- Build vocabulary with games and flashcards.
- Strengthen working memory and logic skills through cognitive skill-building programs.
5. Slow Reading (Lack of Fluency)
If your child reads slowly, frequently pauses, or struggles to read smoothly, they may have fluency issues. This can make reading laborious and discourage them from engaging with texts.
Possible Causes:
- Weak processing speed
- Difficulty recognizing words automatically
- Poor eye-tracking skills
How to Help:
- Encourage regular reading practice with age-appropriate and engaging books (reading the same books over and over is great for building fluency and confidence!)
- Do visual tracking exercises to practice following a line and picking out words or letters from a busy page.
- Consider brain training exercises to boost processing speed and automaticity.
Why Addressing Cognitive Skill Weaknesses Matters
The common thread in all these reading struggles is that they’re often linked to weak cognitive skills. At LearningRx, we specialize in targeting the underlying causes of learning challenges through one-on-one brain training. Our programs focus on strengthening cognitive skills like memory, attention, processing speed, and auditory processing—the skills your child needs to become a confident, successful reader. In a recent study, struggling readers who completed our programs improved reading skills by an average of 3.9 years—in only about 24 weeks! While individual results may vary depending on your child’s unique cognitive profile, we’d love to work with you to give them the tools to read successfully.
