Children develop reading skills at different speeds and in different ways.
There are many clever children who show signs of struggling with learning to read.
Some children may have a long term struggle with learning to read.
It is important to note that coming late to reading is not a measure of a child’s intelligence or ability to perform exceptionally well. It advised that a lot of patience and understanding is needed in other to help a child struggling with reading. In fact, there is a long list of smart people with a lot of accomplishments who struggled with reading.
There should be no serious cause for concern if your 5-year-old child is struggling with reading. There are several measures that you can put in place to help them improve or to boost their reading. Extra classes at home are one way to go about it, another is fun-filled activities that will keep your child in the right frame of mind to learn. Having a series of conversations with your child’s teacher about your child’s engagements in school and what can be done to support them at home.
Another thing to keep in mind is that panicking won’t help. If your child is six years old and is still not reading, get some advice from their teacher. Also, keep in mind that your child will catch up with reading soon enough. Think about it like when children are learning to walk, some start walking earlier than others, but they all end up walking all the same.
Struggling or Reluctant Readers?
Parents worry about their child’s reading comes in two main types. The first one is that you may notice that your child just won’t pick up a book and always seems uninterested. And when they do, they just seem to read the words pretty well—it appears they just don’t want to. You may refer to this group of children reluctant readers.
Research has found that boys make up the majority of this group of readers. One effective method of getting them to read is to tie reading around their interests. If they live video games, give them a magazine about videos games, comics, instructions on how to build Lego models – just about anything that you think they might like.
The second worry parents have to deal with is when they discover that their child is unable to remember common words or the sound of letters. Common words like “come” or “the” can be a struggle for them to remember from one day to another. Children in this group read very slowly and it can be quite frustrating for both child and parent. They are referred to as struggling readers.
What Help Can My Child Need?
Many schools are fully prepared to help children who are struggling readers. They have several programs to help them catch up. In some schools, extra lessons may be prescribed to teach phonics or reading practice. This can be done one one-on-one basis or in small groups. Research has revealed that children struggling to read can catch up quite quickly if the right help is given.