Reading is one of the most fundamental skills a child needs to succeed in school and life. But what if your child is struggling? As a parent, you want to help, but with so many resources and strategies available, it can be hard to know where to start. This guide walks you through a step-by-step approach to identifying reading difficulties, selecting the right intervention, and building your child’s confidence as a reader.
Step 1: Identify the Root of the Struggle
Before jumping into solutions, it’s essential to understand why your child is struggling with reading. Common challenges include:
- Phonemic awareness difficulties – Trouble recognizing and manipulating sounds in words.
- Decoding issues – Struggles with sounding out words.
- Fluency concerns – Slow or choppy reading that makes comprehension difficult.
- Comprehension struggles – Difficulty understanding what they read.
- Working memory weaknesses – Trouble remembering what was just read (or needing to reread the same sentences several times to accurately comprehend them)
Talking with your child’s teacher and observing their reading habits can provide valuable insights into which area is causing the most difficulty, but it can be hard to know for sure without taking a deeper dive into what’s happening in their brain.
Reading requires a network of cognitive skills to all work together seamlessly for reading to happen. If any one (or more) of these skills is behind the others, it can cause disruptions in their ability to read. Because the root cause can vary so widely, a cognitive assessment is a valuable tool to figure out exactly where your child’s hangup is happening.
Step 2: Choose the Right Intervention
Once you know where your child is struggling, it’s time to find the right support. Here are some options:
- Phonics-based programs – These focus on teaching letter-sound relationships explicitly and are great for kids who struggle with decoding.
- Fluency-building strategies – Guided oral reading, repeated readings, and listening to fluent reading can help improve speed and accuracy.
- Comprehension support – Asking questions before, during, and after reading, summarizing passages, and making predictions can strengthen understanding.
- Cognitive skills training – Programs like LearningRx target the underlying cognitive skills that support reading, such as attention, memory, and processing speed. Research shows that strengthening these skills can significantly improve reading abilities.
Bonus: Games are a great way to practice reading skills in a way that feels less stressful to many kids! Here are some of our favorites >>
Step 3: Foster a Positive Reading Environment at Home
Your child’s mindset toward reading plays a crucial role in their progress. Here are ways to build confidence and motivation:
- Make reading enjoyable – Let your child choose books that interest them, even if they seem too easy.
- Read together daily – Shared reading time builds fluency, motivation, and confidence.
- Praise effort, not just success – Encourage persistence and celebrate improvements, no matter how small.
- Set realistic goals – Small, attainable reading goals help build momentum and reduce frustration.
Step 4: Seek Professional Help
If your child continues to struggle despite your efforts, consider seeking professional support. A cognitive assessment can help pinpoint weaknesses in the brain skills that support reading. Programs like LearningRx provide targeted brain training designed to strengthen these cognitive abilities, leading to lasting improvements in reading skills.
It’s tempting as a parent to just “give it time” and hope reading will click, but unfortunately, that’s not the case for most students. If they are a struggling reader in early elementary school, if they don’t get the in-depth intervention that builds foundational learning skills, they are likely to still be struggling years later.
Read More: The Dangers of Delaying Reading Intervention >>
Final Thoughts
Helping your child become a confident reader requires patience, the right strategies, and sometimes, professional support. By identifying their struggles, choosing effective interventions, and creating a positive reading environment, you can set your child up for success. If you’re looking for a research-backed approach to strengthening the cognitive skills behind reading, consider LearningRx. A cognitive skills assessment could be the first step toward unlocking your child’s full reading potential.
Want to learn more? Contact LearningRx today to schedule an assessment and discover how brain training can help your child succeed.
So happy to have found LearningRX! We have a teenage struggling reader with high anxiety who said to me “because of learning I can read now” Their methods and wonderful team are exactly what we needed!
~Kerri M., Harrisonburg, VA
*Results based on past client; you or your child may or may not achieve the same results.
