At the Mary J. Wright Child and Youth Development Clinic at Western University, I work on a team that trains future school psychologists. In our work, we encounter parents almost every day who are concerned about their children’s learning progress.
When I started my training nearly 15 years ago, I wasn’t sure how to respond to these concerns. Could it be that nurses are over-anxious and under-informed?
However, from my own research and experience, I know that caregivers’ concerns about reading usually indicate a need for meaningful learning.
For example, in a study I and my colleagues conducted, we found that nearly half of the children whose parents were concerned about their second-graders’ reading ability scored well below age-appropriate expectations on a standardized reading test. An additional number of children demonstrated language problems.
This is consistent with my clinical experience that the majority of parents who seek evaluation for suspected learning difficulties end up receiving a diagnosis such as learning disability, speech disorder, ADHD or intellectual disability.
If you have concerns about your child’s reading ability or want to help your child learn to read, here are some suggestions.
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Screening tools
While parents’ concerns should be addressed, this does not necessarily mean that they have specific and in-depth knowledge of children’s developmental norms.
When it comes to reading, even teachers have difficulty accurately assessing the level of struggling readers. Teachers and parents may miss reading problems or misunderstand what they see.
That’s where rigorous reading screening tools come in—tests that educators or school psychologists can use to assess a student’s reading level. For screening tools to be effective, they must be carefully tested to show that they accurately identify reading difficulties with minimal time and effort.
In addition, school psychologists can accurately test children’s reading skills in comparison to their peers.
How comfortable is the text at class level?
Even without formal testing, it is possible to get a sense of children’s reading development by looking at their reading accuracy on grade-appropriate texts. It is generally believed that children can read grade-appropriate texts with about 95 percent accuracy (by the end of 1st grade).
So have a child read 50 words from a grade-level book. If he or she makes two to four mistakes, the text may be challenging for the grade level. Five or more mistakes are a sign of significant difficulty. (You may want to check out Reading is Fundamental to find free, printable passages for the grade level. I suggest choosing the medium level.)
Help for struggling readers
For struggling readers who have difficulty recognizing and pronouncing words, intensive, personalized reading programs with a phonics component are a proven method for improving reading skills. Phonics means explicitly teaching children the relationships between written letters and their sounds.
Teaching phonics doesn’t have to be boring or dominate class time. When teaching phonics skills or common words, games can be an effective strategy. Research suggests that children can be engaged through personalized games (e.g., for a child named Ali, “Ali’s Sight Word Hunt”), choice opportunities, and games with an interesting context (e.g., “Olympic Reading Challenge!” as opposed to general reading drills).
Phonetics lessons must be combined with real reading practice and children must be taught strategies to read texts at the appropriate level. Isolated exercises, worksheets or computer games are not enough to achieve this.
Be cautious about general tutoring for children with severe reading difficulties or about therapies that have nothing to do with reading, such as vision or hearing therapy, which may not have a sound scientific basis.
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Reading with children at home
For parents who want to read to their children at home, it is important to avoid stress. Children who struggle with reading can begin to feel bad about their reading skills as early as the early years of school. In my experience, the reading process can be stressful when children are struggling.
Try simpler, more enjoyable reading material. This is actually more effective at improving children’s reading skills and comprehension than forcing them to struggle through more challenging texts. Don’t be afraid to re-read your favorite books either! Re-reading (reading the same text over and over again) has been shown to be a strategy for improving reading skills.
If children are having trouble reading a particular word, give them clues about how to pronounce the word by saying something like, “Try covering the last part” or “The first sound is ‘sh.'” If the word is difficult to pronounce, don’t be afraid to just say it out loud. Remember that children in grade 1 and above should make very few mistakes per page in a text at their level.
Help with reading comprehension
It is very important to help children not only read words correctly, but also understand what they are reading. Building this understanding, known as reading comprehension, requires doing more than just asking questions. after Reading. In fact, it can be more helpful to build children’s background knowledge before Reading, for example through practical activities or discussion of what they already know about a topic.
So consider combining book reading with other everyday activities, such as nature walks, cooking, or discussing relationships. Talking about how texts are structured can also help children better understand what they read. For example, when reading a nonfiction book, discuss how it conveys information and take a look at the table of contents. When reading a story, review key elements such as characters, setting, problem, and solution.
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Multilingual early readers
Parents of children whose first language is not English are likely to be more concerned about their children’s reading ability than parents of English-speaking children. However, most multilingual children can read just as well as children who only speak English relatively early in their schooling.
Read more: 5 ways immigrant parents support their children’s language learning at home
So when parents and teachers of multilingual children notice that they are having difficulty recognizing and pronouncing words, this needs to be addressed immediately. Children who have language difficulties in their native language should also be assessed for learning difficulties.
Learning difficulties often occur together
Caregivers, teachers and other professionals should also keep in mind that learning disabilities often occur along with other problems. If children also have difficulties in areas such as paying attention, completing daily tasks, following rules, interacting with others or managing their feelings, talk to a doctor who will listen to you and carefully evaluate your concerns.
Free, high-quality screening tools such as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire or the Pediatric Symptom Checklist can help healthcare professionals quickly identify potential behavioral or mental health problems.
Don’t wait, investigate
Advising parents who are concerned about their children’s reading ability to “wait and see” contradicts the knowledge that reading problems that appear by the end of first grade are very persistent and stubborn.
It also contradicts research showing that early intervention (as early as kindergarten and first grade) is more effective in preventing and treating reading problems than later intervention.
So if you’re concerned about a child’s reading ability, trust your gut and find a professional who will take your concerns seriously, backed by research and clinical experience.
