Imagine you're a classroom teacher preparing next week's reading lessons. Your district's list of high-frequency words is sitting beside you, but instead of seeing the words, you're picturing the faces of the children who are already struggling.

Some can't remember words they've practiced repeatedly. Some labor over nearly every word they encounter. Others know their letter sounds but can't seem to blend them together. And some successfully decode a word only to get stuck on the very same word a few lines later.

When a child struggles with reading, it's tempting to conclude:

“This child just needs more practice.”

Sometimes more practice helps. But often the more important question is:

What part of the reading process is difficult for this child?

After working with struggling readers for years, Sarah Major began noticing recurring patterns in what children found difficult.

Not every struggling reader will show every characteristic below. But recognizing these signs can help parents and teachers look beyond the broad label of “struggling reader” and begin identifying the specific skills that need attention.

1. The Child Has Difficulty Hearing or Manipulating Sounds in Words

Reading begins with spoken language.

Children need to recognize that words are made up of individual sounds and eventually learn to blend, segment, add, remove, and substitute those sounds.

A child might have difficulty answering questions such as:

What is the first sound in map?

What sounds do you hear in ship?

What word do these sounds make: /s/ /ă/ /t/?

What happens if we change the /m/ in map to /t/?

Difficulties with these tasks can make phonics much harder because phonics requires children to connect the sounds they hear with the letters and spellings they see.

What to look for

Notice whether the child can:

• identify beginning, middle, and ending sounds
• blend individual sounds into words
• segment words into individual sounds
• add or remove sounds
• substitute one sound for another

If this is difficult, spend time strengthening phonemic awareness while connecting that developing sound awareness with print.

2. The Child Doesn't Know Letter Sounds Automatically

Sarah found this important enough that when she worked with older students—even middle school students reading at a much lower level—she would check their knowledge of basic sounds, especially vowel sounds.

That's still a useful lesson.

Don't assume that because a child is older, foundational knowledge is secure.

A child might know many consonant sounds but hesitate over vowels. Another might know sounds individually but retrieve them too slowly for efficient word reading.

What to look for

Show letters and common spellings individually.

Can the child provide their sounds accurately and efficiently?

Pay particular attention to:

• short vowels
• long vowels
• consonant digraphs
• common vowel teams
• other sound-spelling patterns the child has already been taught

If these aren't secure, unfamiliar words can become extremely difficult to decode.

3. The Child Has Trouble Blending Sounds Into Words

Some children can tell you every sound in a word but can't put those sounds together.

Show:

s – a – t

The child responds:

/s/ /ă/ /t/

But when asked, “What word?” the child doesn't know.

That's an important clue.

The problem isn't necessarily lack of letter-sound knowledge. The child may need explicit instruction and practice with blending.

Model how sounds flow together:

/sssăăt/ → sat

Start with simple words containing familiar sound-spelling relationships and gradually increase the complexity as blending becomes more automatic.

4. The Child Becomes Overwhelmed by Too Much Information

Sarah frequently observed that some of her struggling readers had difficulty handling many pieces of information at once.

That doesn't mean we should avoid teaching phonics or simply give children whole words to memorize. Instead, it means we should pay attention to how much new information we're asking the child to process at one time.

A page full of rules, exceptions, unfamiliar spellings, and new vocabulary can overwhelm a child who is still using considerable mental effort to decode.

What to look for

Does the child perform well when working with one skill but become confused when several skills are combined?

Does performance improve when:

• information is presented in smaller steps?
• visual clutter is reduced?
• one pattern is highlighted?
• previously learned skills are reviewed before a new one is introduced?
• new information is connected with something already familiar?

Explicit instruction doesn't have to mean overwhelming instruction.

Teach clearly, systematically, and in manageable amounts.

5. The Child Mixes Up the Sequence of Sounds or Letters

A child may know the sounds but struggle to keep them in the correct order.

For example, the child may read or spell a word with the correct letters but place them in the wrong sequence.

Rather than treating this simply as carelessness, look at whether the child understands the word's sound structure.

Ask the child to say the word slowly and map each sound in order.

Letter tiles, sound boxes, finger mapping, and writing can make the sequence more concrete:

/s/ /t/ /ŏ/ /p/

S – T – O – P

Then blend the sounds back together:

stop

The goal is to help the child connect the sequence of sounds with the sequence of letters.

6. The Child Adds or Omits Sounds When Reading

You may hear a child add a sound that isn't there or leave out one that is.

For example, a child may read a word correctly at the beginning but omit the ending, or miss a sound in a consonant blend.

This can indicate that the child isn't attending closely enough to every part of the printed word.

What to look for

Instead of immediately giving the correct word, compare what the child said with what's actually printed.

Ask:

“Let's look at every part. What sounds do you see?”

Then map the sounds and spellings.

This helps shift the child's attention back to the print rather than encouraging guessing.

7. The Child Hasn't Noticed Common Spelling Patterns

One of Sarah's recurring observations was that struggling readers sometimes approached every unfamiliar word as though it were completely new.

But English words contain many recurring sound-spelling patterns.

Consider:

rain
mail
paint

or:

day
play
stay

When children compare words, they can begin noticing what those words have in common.

Instead of memorizing each as an unrelated sequence of letters, they learn:

“I've seen this spelling before. I know what sound it usually represents.”

What to look for

Does the child recognize a spelling pattern in one word but fail to recognize the same pattern in another?

Word sorts and comparison activities can help.

Have children:

• read words with the pattern
• highlight the common spelling
• sort words by spelling
• build the words
• spell them
• use them in sentences
• find the pattern in connected text

Read more: What Are Spelling Patterns? How to Teach Sound-Spelling Patterns

8. The Child Decodes a Word but Doesn't Recognize It Again

This was one of the behaviors Sarah noticed repeatedly.

A child painstakingly sounds out a word.

Two lines later, the same word appears.

The child painstakingly sounds it out again.

And sometimes again.

This doesn't mean decoding was pointless. Decoding is essential.

But successful word reading also needs to become increasingly automatic.

When children accurately decode words and repeatedly connect their sounds with their spellings, familiar words should gradually require less conscious effort to recognize.

What to look for

Notice whether the child:

• repeatedly decodes the same familiar words
• recognizes words during a lesson but forgets them later
• reads accurately but extremely slowly
• needs repeated prompting on previously taught words

A child showing this pattern may need more opportunities for successful retrieval and application—not simply exposure to more new words.

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

9. The Child Tries to Sound Out Nearly Every Word

Sounding out unfamiliar words is an important reading skill.

But fluent readers don't laboriously decode every familiar word each time they encounter it.

If a child has to work through nearly every word—even words encountered frequently—reading becomes slow and exhausting.

It also consumes attention that could otherwise be used to understand what the text means.

What to look for

Ask whether the child is becoming increasingly efficient with familiar words.

Practice can include:

• rereading appropriate text
• reviewing previously taught patterns
• reading short phrases
• spelling familiar words
• using familiar words in sentences
• retrieving high-frequency words from plain print

The goal isn't to stop children from decoding.

The goal is for successful decoding and repeated encounters to lead toward automatic recognition.

10. The Child Confuses Similar-Looking Words

Some children frequently confuse words such as:

was / saw

on / no

or words with similar beginnings and endings.

Rather than teaching children to recognize only the overall visual shape of a word, direct attention to its internal structure.

Compare the words.

For example:

was
saw

Ask:

What sound comes first?

What comes next?

How are these words alike?

How are they different?

Have the child say, build, read, and write each word.

The purpose is to make the differences in the print explicit.

Look for Patterns, Not Just Mistakes

One reading error doesn't tell us much.

Patterns do.

Suppose a child struggles with several words containing short vowels. That suggests something different from a child who reads words accurately but very slowly.

Likewise, a child who has trouble blending needs something different from a child who blends successfully but doesn't remember previously decoded words.

Keep notes if necessary.

Instead of writing:

“Emma is struggling with reading.”

you might discover:

“Emma knows most consonant sounds but is uncertain about short vowels and has difficulty blending three sounds into a word.”

That's far more useful.

Now you know what to teach.

Use the Child's Strengths While Teaching the Skills They Need

Sarah's work with struggling readers also taught her something else: children who struggle with conventional print instruction may respond very differently when information is made more meaningful and active.

Some children benefit from:

• meaningful visuals
• stories
• gestures and body motions
• tactile activities
• manipulatives
• drawing
• writing
• pattern comparisons

These shouldn't replace explicit reading instruction.

They can reinforce what is being taught and provide additional ways for children to attend to, practice, and remember it.

A child learning a sound-spelling pattern might:

hear it → say it → see it → build it → move it → write it → read it

Purposeful multisensory reinforcement can make an abstract concept more concrete.

What About High-Frequency Words?

High-frequency words appear so often that children eventually need to recognize them efficiently.

But that doesn't mean children should be taught to memorize hundreds of words solely by their overall visual appearance.

Look inside the word.

Which sounds and spellings does the child already know?

Which part needs to be explicitly taught?

Then provide repeated opportunities to retrieve and use the word.

For children who have particular difficulty remembering high-frequency words, additional meaningful memory supports can help.

How SnapWords® Can Support Word Recognition

SnapWords® grew out of Sarah Major's years working with children who struggled to remember words through conventional practice.

Each SnapWords® card connects the printed word with meaningful visual context and

includes a verbal cue and body motion related to the word.

But the picture isn't the final destination.

A simple instructional sequence is:

1. Introduce the printed word and its meaningful visual.
2. Talk about the word and its meaning.
3. Use the accompanying verbal cue and body motion.
4. Notice useful sound-spelling information within the word.
5. Flip the card over and practice the plain printed word.
6. Retrieve the word again without the picture.
7. Read and write the word in phrases, sentences, and connected text.

The visual, verbal, and kinesthetic elements act as temporary memory supports.

The goal is independent recognition of the ordinary printed word.

Read more: What Are SnapWords®? How the Child1st SnapWords System Works

When Should You Be Concerned About a Struggling Reader?

Children learn at different rates, and an occasional reading error isn't necessarily cause for concern.

Pay closer attention when difficulties are:

• persistent
• occurring across multiple reading activities
• continuing despite explicit instruction and appropriate practice
• interfering significantly with reading progress
• causing the child to fall increasingly behind expected instruction

If you're a parent, talk with your child's teacher about the specific behaviors you're seeing.

If you're a teacher, document the child's performance and response to instruction.

Additional assessment may help identify the skills that need more focused support.

The objective isn't simply to attach a label to the child.

It's to understand:

What can this child do now, where is the reading process breaking down, and what needs to be taught next?

Once You've Identified the Problem, What Comes Next?

Recognizing the signs is only the first step.

Once you know whether the difficulty involves phonemic awareness, phonics, blending, sound-spelling patterns, word recognition, fluency, or comprehension, instruction can become much more targeted.

If your child is already behind and you need help deciding what to teach next, continue with:

How to Help a Struggling Reader Catch Up

That article walks through the next stage: identifying the child's instructional needs and building a plan to help the child make progress.