Help! My Child is Struggling with Remembering Words!

Have you ever watched your child work hard to sound out a word, finally read it correctly, and then—sometimes only a few sentences later—come to the same word and act as though they've never seen it before?

I hear this concern regularly, and I've taught students who had the same struggle.

Years ago, when I was teaching kindergarten, I watched children labor to sound out a word only to struggle with that very same word moments later. It happened often enough that I began looking closely at what might help those words become easier to recognize and retrieve.

Later, while working with struggling readers and kindergarten classes in an inner-city school, I continued experimenting with ways to help children connect what they were learning with something they could more readily understand, remember, and retrieve.

Over time, one thing became very clear to me:

Some children need more than a single successful encounter with a word before it becomes familiar.

That doesn't mean we should stop teaching them to decode.

Instead, we want to help children connect the sounds, spellings, meaning, and appearance of a word, provide enough successful practice, and gradually build toward automatic recognition.

Why Does My Child Keep Forgetting Words They've Already Read?

First, it's helpful to distinguish between decoding a word and recognizing it automatically.

When children are beginning to read, they may need to work through the sounds and spellings in a word to identify it.

With instruction and repeated successful encounters, that process should become increasingly efficient. Eventually, many familiar words can be recognized quickly and automatically.

That frees the child to focus more attention on the meaning of the sentence or story rather than laboring over every individual word.

But that transition doesn't happen at exactly the same pace for every child.

A child might successfully decode said, through, could, or another word during today's lesson and still need support when encountering it tomorrow.

The answer isn't necessarily:

“You already learned this. Just remember it!”

Instead, ask:

What does this child need in order to make the word stick?

Here are four approaches that can help.

1. Connect New Learning to Something Familiar

One of the principles I've relied on throughout my teaching career is connecting something unfamiliar with something the child already knows.

Take letter-sound instruction.

You'll find countless illustrated alphabets in which F is paired with a fish because fish begins with /f/.

But think about what the child has to remember:

They see F.

They must remember fish.

Then they must remember the first sound in fish.

For some children, that's easy.

For others, we can make the visual connection much stronger.

What if the visual itself helps the child remember the shape of the letter?

That's why we might use a flag with F.

The flag can be integrated with the form of the letter, creating a meaningful connection among:

the letter F → its shape → the familiar object → the sound /f/

The visual isn't replacing letter-sound instruction.

It's drawing attention to it and providing another retrieval cue.

That's the principle behind the Child1st Alphabet: meaningful visuals are designed around the letters themselves rather than simply placing an unrelated picture beside them.

Child1st Alphabet

2. Use Purposeful Movement to Reinforce Learning

I've also found movement to be very helpful for some children.

Over the years, I taught students who continued to make small hand motions associated with sounds or words as they read. Sometimes they weren't even consciously aware they were doing it.

Those movements had become cues they could use while retrieving what they'd learned.

The important word here is purposeful.

We don't need to add movement to every lesson simply to make it “multisensory.”

Instead, connect the movement directly with what you're teaching.

A hand motion might represent: 

• a particular sound;
• the formation of a letter;
• a spelling pattern;
• the meaning of a word; or
• an action associated with a concept.

If the child no longer needs the movement once the skill becomes automatic, that's fine.

The support is a bridge, not the destination.

3. Use Multisensory Reinforcement After Explicitly Teaching the Word

Some children understand a word during instruction but have difficulty remembering it when they encounter it again.

After explicitly introducing a high-frequency or irregular word, multisensory reinforcement can provide additional support for retention and retrieval.

One tool I developed for this purpose is SnapWords®.

SnapWords combine the printed word with meaningful visual, kinesthetic, and oral reinforcement. Children initially practice the word with these supports and then transition to the plain printed word.

The goal is automatic, independent recognition of the printed word.

And this is an important distinction:

SnapWords® do not replace phonics or decoding.

Children still need explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, sound-spelling relationships, decoding, encoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

SnapWords provide another way to reinforce a word that has been explicitly taught, particularly when the child understands it during instruction but has difficulty retrieving it later.

SnapWords®

A Student Who Remembered THROUGH

One experience from my classroom has always stayed with me.

I was teaching beginning readers, and we were working with words containing OUGH.

That's a challenging spelling because the same letter sequence appears in words with different pronunciations:

rough
drought
thought
though
cough
through

We used visual and movement cues while working with the spelling.

One day, one of my students suddenly read THROUGH.

I didn't realize he'd learned the word, so I asked:

“How did you know that word said THROUGH?”

His answer showed me exactly what had helped him retrieve it.

He remembered it as the word with the green snake crawling through the letters, and as he explained it, his hand was making the snake-like motion we had associated with the word.

The image and movement had given him meaningful cues for retrieving what he'd learned.

But the story doesn't end with the picture.

The goal is for the child eventually to see:

through

and read it independently without needing the illustration or motion.

That's why the supports on SnapWords are gradually removed as the child learns the word.

Try letting your child create the memory connection

Sometimes the most memorable visual is one the child creates.

You can have your child work with an ordinary word card and turn the printed word into something meaningful. With the word SAND, for example, the child could add details that connected the letters with the meaning of sand. With TENT, the two T's could become part of the tent itself.

The important part isn't creating a beautiful picture. It's getting the child to look closely at the printed word, notice its letters and spelling, connect the word with its meaning, and actively participate in creating the memory support.

Afterward, return to the plain printed word. Can the child recognize and read it without the drawing? The visual is a temporary support; independent recognition is the goal.

4. Teach Children to Notice Patterns in Words

Another powerful way to help words become memorable is to stop treating every word as an isolated item.

Look for patterns.

Suppose a child is learning words containing igh: 

high 
light
night
sight
fight
fright
slight

Instead of teaching seven unrelated words, draw attention to what they share.

Ask:

“What do you notice?”

Highlight or underline igh.

Say the words.

Listen for the sound represented by that spelling.

Build some of the words.

Write them.

Find the pattern in books.

Use the words in sentences.

Now when the child encounters bright, it isn't an entirely new collection of letters.

There is something familiar inside it.

This is one of the reasons explicit teaching of sound-spelling relationships and spelling patterns is so valuable.

Children aren't being asked to remember every word as a separate visual object.

They're developing knowledge they can apply across many words.

Should My Child Sound Out the Same Word Every Time?

When a child is learning to read, sounding out unfamiliar words is an important part of developing decoding skill.

But we don't want reading to remain permanently slow and effortful.

As children become more proficient, familiar words should become easier and faster to recognize.

So if your child successfully decodes night every time but still has to labor through:

/n/ ... /ī/ ... /t/

after many successful encounters with the word and its spelling pattern, that's useful information.

The child may need more practice connecting the spoken word, its sounds, and its spelling.

Try working with night alongside related words such as:

light, right, might, sight

rather than repeatedly asking the child to memorize night in isolation.

Help the child notice:

“You already know this part.”

The goal is to move from effortful decoding toward increasingly automatic recognition while maintaining the sound-spelling connections that make reading transferable.

What About High-Frequency Words?

High-frequency words deserve special attention because children encounter them constantly in text.

Some are highly regular.

Others contain a spelling that children haven't learned yet or an element that may initially seem unexpected.

Rather than assuming every high-frequency word must simply be memorized as a whole, show children what they can understand about the word.

Take a word such as said.

Help the child identify the sounds and connect the regular parts with what they know. Then explicitly draw attention to the part that needs special attention.

This approach gives the child more than:

“Just remember what the word looks like.”

We're helping them connect speech with print while also providing additional support when needed.

For children who benefit from visual and multisensory reinforcement, SnapWords can add a meaningful image, motion, and oral cue during the learning stage before transitioning to the plain word.

Why Repetition Alone May Not Be Enough

Practice matters.

Children need repeated opportunities to retrieve and apply what they've learned.

But there's a difference between meaningful practice and simply repeating something without understanding it.

If a child repeatedly fails to remember the same word, increasing the number of repetitions may not address the actual difficulty.

Instead, strengthen the connections.

Can the child hear the sounds in the word?

Can they connect those sounds with the spellings?

Is there a useful pattern to notice?

Does part of the word require special attention?

Does the child understand what the word means?

Would a meaningful visual or motion provide an additional retrieval cue?

Then practice again.

The goal isn't to eliminate repetition.

It's to make the repetition more productive.

Use the Word in Real Reading

Once a child has practiced a word, don't leave it on the flashcard or word list.

Find it in actual text.

Read a sentence containing it.

Read a book where it appears several times.

Have the child use it in a sentence.

Write it.

Come back to it tomorrow.

Then revisit it several days later.

This gives you much better information than asking the child to identify the word five times in a row.

Can the child retrieve it later and in a different context?

That's what we're working toward.

What If My Child Remembers the Word Today but Forgets It Tomorrow?

That's frustrating, but it doesn't necessarily mean yesterday's instruction failed.

Learning takes repeated successful retrieval over time.

Instead of immediately reteaching everything from the beginning, give the child a chance to recall what they know.

You might ask:

“What do you notice about this word?”

“Do you recognize a spelling pattern?”

“Can you say the sounds?”

“Does anything about this word look familiar?”

Provide only as much support as necessary.

Then have the child read the word again in context.

Over time, you want the amount of support to decrease.

Reading a Word and Spelling a Word Are Related—but Different

Sometimes parents tell us:

“My child can read the word but can't remember how to spell it.”

That's a related problem, but it deserves slightly different instruction.

Reading asks the child to look at print and identify the word.

Spelling asks the child to start with the spoken word, identify its sounds, and produce the correct written representation.

If your child's primary difficulty is remembering how to spell words, rather than recognizing them while reading, see:

How to Teach Spelling So Kids Will Remember

Keeping those two problems distinct helps us give children the right kind of practice.

When a Child Can't Remember Words, Look for the Missing Connection

When a child repeatedly forgets words, it's easy to conclude:

“They have a bad memory.”

But that's not always the most useful place to start.

Instead, look more closely at the learning process.

Perhaps the child needs:

• stronger phonemic awareness;
• more explicit sound-spelling instruction;
• additional decoding practice;
• more opportunities to recognize a spelling pattern across words;
• meaningful visual reinforcement;
• purposeful movement;
• additional practice retrieving the word over time; or
• more opportunities to encounter the word in real reading.

Different children may need different combinations of support.

The goal isn't to avoid challenging skills or find a shortcut around learning to read.

It's to discover what connection is missing and teach it explicitly.

From Sounding Out to Automatic Word Recognition

Learning to read requires many skills working together.

Children need to hear the sounds in spoken language, understand how those sounds connect with print, blend sounds to read words, build knowledge of spelling patterns, develop vocabulary and comprehension, and practice until reading becomes increasingly fluent.

For some children, meaningful visuals, patterns, movement, stories, and other multisensory supports can make those connections easier to understand and retrieve.

That's the purpose of Child1st's approach.

We aren't changing what children need to learn.

We're giving them additional pathways for understanding, practicing, and remembering it.

When a child finally encounters a word that once stopped them—and reads it automatically—you can see the difference.

The energy that once went into figuring out the word can now go toward something much more important:

understanding what they're reading.