Some people think that to help a struggling reader, the student just needs to read more. Although daily reading is an essential component of reading fluency, this is not the best approach to take with a child who is struggling.

As a classroom teacher, I know it’s a challenge to address the varied reading levels within a class. The tips and resources in this article are meant to help both teachers and parents with some strategies that have worked with my students to nurture reading skills.

Sometimes, reading difficulty is an indicator of something more serious. One common learning disability is dyslexia, which can affect a child’s ability to spell, write, and read. These special cases should always involve school specialists to help you diagnose. A few signs of dyslexia in elementary students are:

• Struggling to sound out familiar words and not wanting to read aloud
• Reading slowly and not comprehending what they read
• Not remembering details
• Mixing up the order of letters

Here are five tips to help a struggling reader build confidence in reading fluency and comprehension.

1. Find the Phonological Gaps

Rather than teaching children from where they “should” be reading, start at the beginning. Look for holes in the phonological and phonemic awareness. (This is the most common problem.)

Supplement reading instruction with additional phonics and phonological practice. Once those reading skills are mastered, introduce reading selections that practice those patterns. Here are a few lesson ideas to help.

• Basic Phonics Skills, Level B: This resource provides plenty of practice pages to help children master consonant sounds, short vowel sounds, plural endings, and word families. Included are take-home phonics readers for additional practice. (This resource is available in four different levels of difficulty: A, B, C, and D for grades K–3.)

2. Model Fluent Reading and Comprehension Strategies

The National Reading Panel Report supports sounding out letters as the number one method to help struggling readers. Model for children how to sound out and decode words. Some children learn best with a tactile component. Model sounding out words by placing an object next to a letter for each sound.

For example:

Have children sound out CAT, and each time they sound out a letter, have them place a small object underneath the letter they are sounding out. As a classroom teacher, I would use small, round, red magnets on my whiteboard to place underneath each letter.

C       A       T

Small group or one-on-one instruction is the best solution for helping struggling readers improve. Children in this setting face fewer distractions and can see your mouth forming the sounds easier. You are also able to monitor their progress closely in this type of setting.

After reading a passage, check for understanding. Some children are so focused on decoding the words that they are not paying attention to what they are reading. Sometimes, this is a good indicator that a reading passage is too difficult. The optimal reading passage for practice allows children to read fluently and understand what they read.

For more details on how to check fluency levels in students, read this article: How Many Words Per Minute Should My Child Read? A Guide to Reading Fluency.

3. Build Confidence

Most of the time, struggling readers feel ashamed and embarrassed that they are not reading like their peers. They don’t want to read aloud or tackle challenging reading activities in a group setting. Make time in your instruction to find each child’s strengths and compliment the student. Sometimes it helps to share your own difficulties with learning so students feels less lonely in their struggle. I like to recall my early struggles in math and the skills I developed to tackle difficult assignments. Often, the skills struggling children develop to overcome their learning obstacles are the same skills that will make them successful adults (perseverance, dedication, humility, compassion for others, and just plain hard work). Students who are succeeding without much effort will have to learn those traits later in life.

4. Practice Aloud

This is a struggling reader’s worst nightmare. Take time to pull these readers into a private setting and listen to them read aloud. This will showcase their progress as they infuse what they are learning in their reading lessons into reading practice. It will also highlight any word patterns or letter sounds they are still struggling with and that may need review.

Before asking a child to read aloud, preview difficult vocabulary in the passage. Model how to sound out the words and discuss their meaning. This will help alleviate children’s stress when they progress to reading it aloud alone. If they continue to struggle with the words, read the difficult ones with them to model correct pronunciation. These leveled reading comprehension resources are a great way to provide reading practice and check for comprehension.

• Nonfiction Reading Practice for grades 1–6 works well within the classroom setting. It provides three different levels of reading for the same nonfiction story. This resource is ideal for supporting basic to advanced reading level instruction within a classroom. Each student can read at his or her own level while studying the same topic. Each robust reading unit includes:
  
  • 3 leveled reading passages
  • Comprehension questions
  • Text-dependent writing prompt
     
• Read and Understand with Leveled Texts for grades 1–6 covers a range of reading skills within specific Lexile levels. The engaging stories and fun practice activities engage even the most reluctant readers. These lessons and activities provide:
  • Fiction and nonfiction topics
  • Comprehension and vocabulary review
  • Text-to-text comparisons
     

5. Include Multi-Sensory Activities

Providing visual, auditory, and tactile learning activities is a wonderful way to keep children engaged and provide avenues of practice that may interest them more than traditional learning models. Songs, chants, and hands-on center activities are some of the simplest methods for reinforcing children’s learning through multi-sensory activities.

• Phonics Intervention Centers: Vowel Digraphs: This is a great hands-on center activity to help students struggling with vowel digraphs (those pesky sound-letter combinations that don’t follow the rules). This center provides colorful ready-made activities and an assessment to record students’ progress.   
• This classic Peanut Butter and Jelly chant is a fun activity to get children moving and reading together. Download your free copy here.

Read Fun Phonics Activities and Games for ideas for rhyming games, flip books, and hands-on center ideas.

One of my favorite quotes in teaching is “strive for progress not perfection.” Building a struggling child’s reading skills can take years. Focus on a student’s individual progress and not that of his or her peers.

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Heather Foudy is a certified elementary teacher with over 7 years’ experience as an educator and volunteer in the classroom. She enjoys creating lessons that are meaningful and creative for students. She is currently working for Evan-Moor’s marketing and communications team and enjoys building learning opportunities that are both meaningful and creative for students and teachers alike.