Signs of a Reading Problem

Vivienne,
It can be somewhat common for children to skip small words when reading. We have a blog post that covers this, Help! My Child Skips Small Words When Reading.

As for autism, skipping small words or not skipping them is not really a symptom of autism. You would have to have your child evaluated by a physician to be able to be sure whether autism is likely or not.

I’m glad this was helpful for you, Anne!

I’m so sorry your child is having such difficulties, Busisiwe, and that his school just keeps passing him on to higher levels instead of providing him the help he needs. I recommend you speak with his teacher and the school administrators about your concerns.

I hope this blog post is helpful for you. You may also find our 10 Tips for Reaching Your Struggling Learner article helpful as well.

I’m so sorry your child is struggling, Ntombikayise! You may find our Signs of a Reading Problem and 10 Tips for Reaching Your Struggling Learner articles helpful.

Alison,
What you described is normal for a young child just beginning to read. However, here are some thoughts/tips to help him have fewer difficulties.

When he sounds out /c/-/ă/-/t/ and then says cab, he is showing that he needs to do the entire blending procedure including the cumulative blending as shown in Lesson 1 and also in our Helping Kids Sound Out Words blog post.

Review the blending procedure at the start of each day (before you do any of the word cards or anything else). You want to make sure he is doing every step as shown in the book. I would start each day with a tile demonstration until he is able to demonstrate all the steps back to you. (Help as much as he needs while he’s learning to do this, but eventually, it should be easy for him and he will be able to demonstrate it without help):

– First, point to each letter and say the sounds.
– Second, draw the finger under the first two letters. Blend just those first two sounds. Then point to and say the last sound. This cumulative blending step is really important for kids who tend to forget the last sound or mix the sounds up if they try to jump from the first step to the fourth.
– Third, draw the finger slowly under all three letters and blend those.
– Fourth, say it fast or “say it like a word.”

The tile activities where you change out one tile at a time are very helpful for working on blending (called “Change the Word” in the Teacher’s Manual). Start with simple words using letters he has reviewed so far in AAR 1: bat-sat-sad-mad-mat, and so on.

Another thing that you can do with young kids that’s fun: (First the parent demonstrates this, and then the child mimics.) Lay three sheets of colored paper on the floor. Write one letter on each sheet of paper, like M – A – P. Jump on the first paper and say /MMMMM/. Jump on the second paper and say /aaaaa/. Jump on the third paper and say /P/. Then start over, and do it quicker: /mmmmaaaa/ /p/, and then /mmmmmmaaaaaaap/. Finally run across the papers and say “MAP!” You can do a similar activity on the table with a race car and the Phonogram Cards.

As for guessing at sounds, saying /m/ when the word is cat or something like that, is it possible that he has become tired or frustrated when this happens? Reading is hard work for little minds and such mistakes become common when they get tired. We typically recommend spending just 20 minutes a day on reading instruction for this reason, but with such a young child even shorter lessons are reasonable.

If you notice him having trouble or just getting tired or frustrated, go ahead and end reading time for the day. Progress can’t be made when a child’s mind is tired anyway. When my daughter was little, we often ended after just 10 or 15 minutes because of how quickly she grew tired. In time she was able to do longer and longer.

As for needing to sound out a word each time he sees it, even if it is only a few moments later, that is very common for those just starting AAR 1! Reaching the goal of smooth, fluent reading will be a gradual process over many lessons. Some kids really need a lot of extra practice in the decoding stage, so spend as much time as needed and try not to worry if your student isn’t reading fluently just yet. As long as he is able to sound the words out without difficulties, he is ready to move on to the next lesson.

Students may need to read a word thirty times or more before they can read it fluently without having to sound it out! So, just know that some beginning readers do need a lot of practice and review. Here’s an article on How to Develop Reading Fluency that can help you understand the overall scope of achieving fluency. Some ideas that can help:

The Change-the-Word activities are especially helpful for working on blending and paying attention to ALL sounds in a word. Change one letter at a time, starting with simple 3-sound words like: bat-sat-sit-sip-tip-top…and so on. They are also really helpful for working on consonant blends when you get to those lessons.

The Word Cards allow you to track what has been mastered and what still needs work. Keep word cards in daily review until your student can read them easily, without needing to sound them out. Here are some fun review ideas for word cards. The Word cards will stack up as you go–just rotate through a portion for 2-3 minutes each day and then pick up in the book wherever you left off previously. And here’s a fun little video explaining what to do when the cards stack up.

The fluency pages can be re-used as well. You might enjoy our 16 Ways to Make Practice Sheets Fun. (And check out the comments as well–lots of fun suggestions in there!)

Students who struggle with fluency will also benefit from rereading the same story two or three days in a row to gain fluency and confidence. Buddy Reading can be very powerful in helping students who are in this stage of struggling with fluency.

Rereading the stories will help accomplish these goals:

– Increase word rate
– Improve prosody. Prosody is “expressive reading.” It involves phrasing (grouping words into meaningful phrases), emphasis, and intonation (raising pitch at the end of questions, lowering pitch at the end of sentences)
– Improve automaticity (be able to recognize most words automatically without having to sound them out each time)

Here’s more help with Overcoming Obstacles when Reading AAR Stories.

You can also do a variation of buddy reading called “echo reading.” You read a few sentences with full expression, and then your child reads the same sentences, matching your expression as closely as possible. Do this for approximately five minutes a day, or whatever is a comfortable length of time for your child. Add in lots of praise when your child shows even a bit of improvement.

The “Fun with Emojis” article gives an enjoyable way to work on reading with expression too. This can be a great way to make reading fun that also sneaks in some extra practice from the fluency pages or readers. Check out Reading with Expression for this activity and others.

I hope this helps you feel better about your son’s reading while also giving you lots of ideas on how to help him practice and improve. I’d love to hear how things go over the next month or so. Let me know if you have additional concerns or questions.

Caroline,
If your child is very young and just learning how to write, this is very normal. However, this could be a sign of a problem with an older child that has been writing his name for years. Without more information, I’m sorry can’t help much.

I’m sorry your child is having difficulties, Augustina. Maybe our Helping Kids Sound Out Words blog post can help him or her focus on every letter of words. For spelling, take a look at Segmenting: A Critical Skill for Spelling.

I’m sorry your son is having difficulties, Monica. Some children do have a lot of trouble memorizing and need extra time or other approaches to learn these things.

One way to approach “sight words” is to teach him phonograms so he knows the sounds that letters make and can sound the sight words out. Even words that are rule breakers like “was” has only one letter not saying a sound we expect it to say (the A in this case) while the other letters say exactly what we expect. This makes it only a matter of remembering that the A says /uh/ in this word rather than memorizing the entire word. And other words (like “and”, “had”, “has” and most other so-called sight words) are completely predictable and easy to sound out if students know phonograms. Check out our How to Teach Phonograms blog post.

Linda,
I am so sorry that your grandson’s struggles are causing him to be so angry and upset! It’s heartbreaking, and it doesn’t need to be. Some people just need to learn differently and it sounds like he is one of them.

Whether to continue with the school program you are using now or to homeschool is a personal decision. If you opt to continue to work with his school, you can request testing and different educational options for him. It does no good to continue to ask him to do what he cannot do.

Whether you opt to homeschool or just want to help your grandson after school, All About Reading can help. It is specially designed to take the struggle out of learning to read! Our placement tests will help determine which level he is ready to start with and our programs are easy to teach at home.

Please let me know if you have questions or need any help.

Maritza,
Being able to hear the individual sounds in words is an important skill for both learning how to read and for learning how to spell. It is one of the phonological awareness skills. Our Fun Ways to Develop Phonological Awareness blog post can help you help your child become stronger in these skills.

Please let me know if you have further questions or need more help.

Nidhi,
You may find our 10 Tips for Reaching Your Struggling Learner helpful.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

This is wonderful to hear, Laura! I know from personal experience that it can be frustrating and disheartening when progress is slow, but keep up the great work. Success in reading will come!