Reading Troubleshooting

Children that are not taught the full building blocks of reading will noticeably show issues further down the road. This becomes a large problem since it can be missed for so long.

Why is this a problem?

You are taught how to read the first few years of school, after that it becomes more complex. Building sentence structure, punctuation, nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. On top of that, comprehension is important. Did your child understand what was read? If your child isn't taught the full building blocks, they could still be struggling to read words at their own grade level.

How can you understand what was read if you don't know some of the words?

One of the most common issues with teaching reading is skipping or rushing the alphabet and phonetics of the alphabet. Your child should be a master at identifying each letter and what sound that letter makes. Now I'm not saying older kids with issues don't know their letters, but if they don't have the full realization of what sound each letter makes, they cannot pronounce words, new or common.

How does this happen?

In kindergarten and first grade, teachers will start on sight words. Sight word practice is great and a very vital building block of reading. Not all words in the English language follows the rules and it can be very frustrating for early learners and for those learning the English language. However, since we are very visual beings and learn sight words quite easily, we tend to skip ahead and/or stop phonetics before truly ready.

How do I identify the problem?

To provide and example, I had a student once that said "squirrel" instead of the word "squire." When I had them go back to try it again, they just stopped and wouldn't attempt the word again. They already knew the word squirrel by experience, but couldn't pronounce it. Sit with your child and watch them read. A great thing to try is write down words that would be typical of their age level and add slightly harder words or words you know they haven't seen yet. Also, try some words that are similarly spelled with slight changes. If your child stops, skips, or says a word that may have some similar spellings, have them go back and try again. Ask them to sound out each syllable and write it in sections for them to break down the word.

What do I do?

The Phonics Song by the Dave and Ava Channel is a great resource for beginner and struggling readers. If you don't want to have them watch the video multiple times, it is easy to get the main idea of the song to adapt it to things your child likes. Or, once your kid gets used the song, adapt it. For example in the song, it goes, "A is for apple, 'ah' 'ah' 'ah' apple...B is for ball, 'buh' 'buh' 'buh' 'buh' ball. You can change it to things around you, or things for their interests. A vehicle enthusiast could use B is for bulldozer and T is for tractor. A Disney fan could use B is for Belle and C is for Cinderella. I highly encourage you to not use the same words every single time. It's totally fine to stick to one version most of the time, but it is always a great tool to challenge your kids to think of as many words as possible with certain letters. For example, my boys love foam bath letters. In the tub, when they pick up a letter like G, they say as many words as they can think of with that letter. You should join in too. Gargoyle, gargantuan, guava, even genius are some ideas off the top of my head.

Try it out! What unique words did you or your kids come up with?