Is Your Child Struggling With Reading? Find the Skill They Need Help With

When a child falls behind in reading, more practice is not always the answer. First, identify where the difficulty begins. A child may struggle to recognise unfamiliar words, read too slowly to retain meaning, lack key vocabulary, or read smoothly without understanding the passage. Think of reading as a ladder. The skills include decoding words, reading fluently, understanding vocabulary, comprehending ideas, explaining answers with evidence, and applying the same skills to a new text. A weakness at an earlier stage can affect everything that follows. Watch how your child handles unfamiliar words and whether they lose their place while reading. If they are accurate but very slow, fluency may be the issue. If they read confidently but cannot explain what happened or why, focus on comprehension by asking questions that require reasons and evidence. For older children, encourage a simple answer structure: state the answer, identify evidence from the text, explain what it shows, and link it back to the question. Changing questions from direct recall to inference can also reveal whether the skill is truly secure.

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