Reading Help

Overcoming challenges to reading

Let’s be real. Reading is THE most important educational skill your child will ever learn. It is the basis for academic learning for the rest of your child’s life! That’s why it’s so important to recognize and address reading challenges early on. The wait and hope approach rarely works…and it’s certainly easier to teach a 2nd grader how to read than a 7th grader!

Kindergarten to 2nd Grade reading help

Daily phonics and reading practice will help your child strengthen developing reading skills! This is also the best time to start nurturing your child’s love for reading. Budget 30 min a day to sit down and read with your child, encouraging them to sound out words and talk about what they’re reading.  Don’t forget to put down your device and pick up a book or magazine yourself, so that your child sees that you enjoy reading yourself (they look at what you do!).  Make reading nights fun by providing special snacks to share while they read and discuss what everyone is reading (this also builds their verbal vocabulary!).

Grades 3-8 reading help

If your child doesn’t have strong phonemic awareness at this age level, encourage them to continue to sound out unfamiliar words. They may be embarrassed because their classmates have already mastered phonics, so at home practice is even more crucial. In addition, building a strong vocabulary is needed for your child to understand what they’re reading. Make sure they’re absorbing plenty of new words in their daily conversations, activities, and reading.  Continue with weekly family reading nights, and encourage them to transition from comic books or graphic novels to more chapter books and novels.

Grades 9+ reading help

If your child reaches high school and still struggles with reading, unfortunately academics will be astronomically harder. The first step is to recognize that this needs to be a TOP priority. Work with your student to create a long term study plan that focuses on lots of reading (sorry, graphic novels won’t cut it!), vocabulary, critical thinking, and writing. Keep in mind this is OUTSIDE of school - there’s not enough time in class to play catch up.

Ideally, our students’ reading tastes naturally advance as their skills do. But in reality, as parents, we may need to step in to nurture our children’s reading skills and tastes so they develop appropriately. Just like if your child isn’t eating properly, you would consult a doctor, modify the family diet or cooking schedule, etc. If your child is not reading properly (and a book diet of mostly comic books is insufficient), then you need to consider reading help.