When a child is struggling with reading, it can be difficult for everyone involved.

Parents may wonder, Why is reading so hard for my child? Are they falling too far behind? Will they ever catch up?

Teachers may see a bright, capable child who understands conversations, remembers experiences, asks thoughtful questions, and shows strengths in many areas—but struggles when it's time to read.

And children notice, too.

They see classmates reading books they cannot yet read. They may begin to avoid reading, guess at words, become frustrated, or conclude that they simply aren't good at it.

But struggling with reading does not tell us how capable a child is.

It tells us that we need to discover where the reading process is breaking down and what kind of instruction will help that child move forward.

Can Struggling Readers Catch Up?

Yes, struggling readers can make significant progress when instruction addresses the specific skills they need and gives them enough supported practice to become successful readers.

I saw this firsthand when I worked as a Title I Program Director.

I worked with students from kindergarten through seventh grade who were behind in reading. Some of the older children came to me reading at approximately a second-grade level.

What struck me was how quickly many students could begin progressing once we stopped looking at how far behind they were and started identifying exactly what they needed next.

The goal wasn't to throw more reading at them.

It was to observe, identify the problem, make a plan, and teach in ways that helped the child understand and remember what they were learning.

That's still a good place to begin.

Why Is My Child Struggling With Reading?

Reading may look like a single activity, but successful reading requires children to coordinate many skills.

A child may need to:

• hear and work with the sounds in spoken words
• connect sounds with letters and spelling patterns
• blend sounds to read unfamiliar words
• recognize familiar words automatically
• read accurately and fluently
• understand vocabulary and sentence structure
• hold information in mind while reading
• connect ideas across sentences and paragraphs
• understand and remember what the text means

Different children can get stuck at different points in this process. 

That's why the first question shouldn't simply be:

“How do I get my child to read more?”

A better question is:

“What happens when my child tries to read?”

1. Believe in Your Child's Ability to Learn

One of the most important things we can do for a struggling reader is separate reading performance from ability.

A child can be bright, creative, curious, observant, imaginative, mechanically inclined, artistic, verbally expressive, or an excellent problem-solver—and still struggle with reading.

In one message I received from a parent, she described her third grader as “sharp as a tack” outside of school. Her daughter was capable and bright, but reading had become difficult enough that it was beginning to affect how she saw herself.

That matters.

Children who experience repeated difficulty may begin to expect failure before a lesson even begins.

Our job isn't to convince children that reading isn't difficult when it genuinely is difficult for them.

Instead, we can communicate:

“This is hard right now, but we are going to figure out what is making it hard and work on it together.”

2. Watch Your Child Read

Before choosing another program, workbook, app, or stack of flash cards, spend some time watching your child read.

Don't watch only for mistakes.

Watch the process.

Does your child:

• lose their place frequently?
• have difficulty blending sounds?
• know individual letter sounds but struggle to put them together?
• repeatedly sound out the same word as though they've never seen it before?
• guess based on the first letter?
• confuse particular sound-spelling patterns?
• read individual words accurately but very slowly?
• read fluently but have little idea what the passage meant?
• become overwhelmed by a page with a lot of print?
• do well with a skill during instruction but struggle to use it later?

These observations give us clues about what to teach next.

3. Identify the Skills That Need Attention

Once you've observed the child, try to narrow the problem.

For example:

If the child has difficulty hearing the individual sounds in words:
They may need additional phonemic-awareness practice.

If the child hears the sounds but doesn't connect them reliably to print:
Work explicitly on letter-sound and sound-spelling correspondences.

If the child knows sounds individually but struggles to combine them:
Practice blending sounds into words.

If the child can decode a word but has to decode the same word over and over:
They need help developing automatic word recognition.

If the child reads words accurately but very slowly:
They may need additional supported practice to develop fluency.

If the child reads the words but doesn't understand the passage:
Look more closely at vocabulary, background knowledge, sentence comprehension, attention to meaning, and reading-comprehension strategies.

This is much more productive than simply telling a child to “practice reading.”

4. Make a Focused Plan

Once you know what your child needs, make the goal manageable.

Instead of:

“We need to get you caught up in reading.”

try:

“We're going to work on blending these sounds smoothly this week.”

Or:

“We're going to practice these sound-spelling patterns until you can recognize and use them easily.”

Or:

“We're going to work on recognizing these high-frequency words automatically so reading sentences becomes easier.”

A focused plan turns an overwhelming problem into a series of achievable steps.

I encourage adults to share the plan with the child, rather than making reading intervention something that simply happens to them.

A child who understands the goal can begin noticing their own progress.

5. Build New Learning Onto What the Child Already Knows

One of my favorite ways to think about learning is as a snowball.

New information is easier to understand and remember when we connect it to something already known.

For example, suppose a child knows the sound for A.

We can use that knowledge to build:

A → AT → FAT

Now the child isn't being handed three unrelated facts.

Each new piece connects to something that came before.

As the snowball grows, the child has more knowledge available for learning the next thing.

6. Teach Phonics Explicitly—and Help Words Become Automatic

Phonics is essential because children need to understand how the sounds in spoken language connect with letters and spelling patterns in print.

Teach those relationships directly.

Let children hear the sounds, identify them, connect them with their spellings, blend them into words, segment words for spelling, and notice recurring spelling patterns.

But decoding is not the final goal.

When children first encounter an unfamiliar word, they may need to work through its sounds and spellings carefully.

With successful practice, familiar words should become increasingly quick and automatic to recognize.

That automaticity matters because a child who must labor over nearly every word has fewer mental resources available for understanding the sentence or story.

This is also why phonics and automatic word recognition shouldn't be treated as competing approaches. Children need to understand how written words work and build enough successful experience with those words that recognition becomes efficient.

7. Use Multisensory Supports Purposefully

Sometimes a concept becomes clearer when a child can see it, say it, hear it, touch it, write it, or move with it.

The purpose isn't movement for movement's sake.

The activity should reinforce the concept being taught.

For example, children might:

• move letter cards to build a word
• finger-map sounds as they segment a word
• write spelling patterns on a whiteboard
• trace or form letters while saying their sounds
• sort words according to spelling patterns
• use a body motion connected with a sound or spelling
• use a meaningful visual or story as a temporary memory support

The important point is that these supports remain connected to the print and the skill being taught.

Our goal is always independence.

8. Look for Patterns Instead of Teaching Isolated Facts

Reading and spelling become easier when children begin noticing how words are related.

If you're teaching the long-A sound, for example, children can examine groups of words containing spellings such as:

AI — rain, mail, paint
AY — day, play, stay
A-E — cake, game, late

Rather than memorizing an unrelated list of words, children can compare them, sort them, read them, spell them, and discover recurring patterns.

This gives children something larger to understand than an isolated rule.

9. Practice the Skill in Real Reading

A child can perform beautifully with flash cards or a phonics activity and still struggle when opening a book.

That's why skills need to move into connected text.

If you're teaching a particular group of sounds or spelling patterns, give the child opportunities to encounter those patterns in sentences and stories they can successfully read.

Child1st's Easy-for-Me™ Children's Readers were designed for this purpose. They give children reading practice using concepts that have already been taught rather than expecting them to continually confront unfamiliar patterns.

This helps children experience the purpose of phonics:

Phonics isn't something we learn to complete a worksheet. We learn it so we can read.

10. Help the Child Connect Reading With Meaning

Reading isn't complete when the child pronounces the final word on the page.

Talk about what was read.

Ask questions such as:

What happened?

What did you picture while you were reading?

Why did the character do that?

What do you think will happen next?

What was the most important part?

Children can draw a scene, retell the story, act something out, or explain it in their own words.

These activities help keep meaning at the center of reading while decoding skills are developing.

11. Give Your Child Ownership

Children often become more engaged when they have some control over their learning.

Let the child:

• see the goal
• help track progress
• choose between appropriate practice activities
• notice which strategies help
• celebrate skills they've mastered
• recognize how much more they can do now than several weeks ago

That can change the conversation from:

“I'm bad at reading.”

to:

“This is what I'm working on next.”

12. Create Frequent Opportunities for Success

A struggling reader spends plenty of time encountering things that are difficult.

Make sure instruction also gives the child opportunities to experience genuine success.

That doesn't mean making everything easy.

It means giving children tasks that stretch them without constantly overwhelming them.

Practice a new skill.

Mix it with something already known.

Apply it.

Come back to it.

Then gradually increase the challenge.

Progress builds confidence much more effectively than simply telling a discouraged child to “be confident.”

What If My Child Can Sound Out Words but Doesn't Remember Them?

This is a common concern.

A child may successfully decode a word such as said, encounter it again two lines later, and act as though it is completely new.

That doesn't necessarily mean the child needs to memorize the word visually.

Continue helping the child connect:

the sounds in the word → the letters/spellings representing those sounds → the word's pronunciation → its meaning

Then provide repeated opportunities to retrieve the word and encounter it in meaningful reading.

For children who need additional support making those connections, SnapWords® combines explicit attention to the printed word with meaningful visual, verbal, and multisensory memory supports. Those supports are designed to lead toward recognition of the plain printed word—not dependence on a picture.

Read more: Help! My Child Is Struggling With Remembering Words

What If I Suspect Dyslexia?

Persistent difficulty learning to read can have many causes, and dyslexia is one possibility.

Children with dyslexia benefit from clear, explicit, systematic instruction in important reading skills, including phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, spelling, word recognition and fluency.

Multisensory supports can reinforce that instruction when they are purposefully connected to the skill being learned.

If your child continues to struggle despite appropriate instruction, talk with the child's teacher or school about what they are observing and what additional support or evaluation may be appropriate.

Learn more: How to Teach a Child With Dyslexia to Read: 8 Helpful Strategies

When Should I Ask for More Help?

Don't feel that you must wait until a child is dramatically behind before asking questions.

Consider talking with the teacher or school when:

• reading difficulties persist despite targeted instruction
• progress is unusually slow
• the child struggles significantly with phonemic awareness or decoding
• reading difficulty is affecting other schoolwork
• the child becomes increasingly frustrated or avoidant
• you or the teacher have concerns about a possible learning difficulty

The purpose isn't to attach a label to every reading struggle.

The purpose is to understand what the child needs so instruction and support can be better matched to those needs.

How Child1st Supports Struggling Readers

Child1st resources are designed to make reading concepts clear and memorable through explicit instruction combined with meaningful visual, tactile, verbal, and kinesthetic supports.

Depending on what a child needs, helpful resources may include:

SnapWords®
Supports high-frequency word learning and automatic word recognition by connecting print, sound, spelling, meaning, visuals, and movement.

Easy-for-Me™ Reading
Provides a systematic approach to beginning reading that incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, word recognition, spelling, comprehension, and multisensory practice.

Easy-for-Me™ Children's Readers
Give children opportunities to practice reading in connected text using skills and concepts they have already learned.

Right-Brained Phonics & Spelling
Helps children understand sound-spelling patterns through explicit instruction combined with visual patterns, meaningful connections, and multisensory practice.

The goal is not to replace systematic reading instruction.

It is to make that instruction accessible and memorable so children can use what they've learned independently.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you help a struggling reader?

Begin by observing the child read and identifying the specific skills causing difficulty. Then provide focused instruction and practice in those areas rather than simply asking the child to read more. Depending on the child, this may include phonemic awareness, phonics, blending, sound-spelling patterns, automatic word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension.

Can a child who is behind in reading catch up?

Yes. Many struggling readers can make substantial progress with effective, targeted instruction and sufficient practice. How quickly a particular child progresses will depend on the child's needs, previous instruction, the nature of the difficulty, and the support provided.

Why does my child know a word one day and forget it the next?

The word may not yet be stored securely enough for automatic recognition. Continue connecting the sounds, spellings, pronunciation and meaning of the word, and provide opportunities for retrieval and use in connected reading rather than relying only on repeated visual exposure.

Should a struggling reader sound out every word?

Children should use their phonics knowledge to decode unfamiliar words. As words become familiar through successful reading experience, however, recognition should become increasingly automatic. Fluent reading would be extremely difficult if every familiar word had to be consciously sounded out every time.

How much should a struggling reader practice?

Short, focused and successful practice is often more productive than long sessions that lead to frustration. The appropriate amount depends on the child's age, needs and instructional setting. Focus on consistent practice that targets the skills the child actually needs.

Is multisensory instruction helpful for struggling readers?

It can be. Visuals, movement, tactile activities, speaking and writing can provide additional ways to reinforce a reading concept. The strongest activities are purposeful and remain directly connected to the sounds, letters, spelling patterns, words or meanings being taught.