Common Causes of Reading Problems

Common Causes of Reading Problems.  Reading is a critical life skill but up to twenty five percent of kids struggle with learning to read. Common causes of reading problems include having a breakdown in one of the five main areas of reading.  These areas are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension. Testing your child can identify the problem so you can provide specific support.  Then your child will gain reading confidence.

Phonemic awareness is the awareness of sounds and how they work in words.  This is a foundational reading skills and a breakdown can interfere with reading and spelling.  Phonics is understanding the relationship between letters and their sounds.  A breakdown here interferes with your child’s ability to quickly and automatically sound out unfamiliar words.

Your child’s reading fluency is important because fluent reading frees up your child’s thinking power to focus on understanding what is being read.  If your child lacks fluency they spend so much mental energy on pronouncing the words that they often don’t understand what they read.

Some children read words but don’t understand their meaning.  For example, “The pig did a jig.” Your child might not know a jig is a type of dance so a vocabulary weakness interferes with comprehension.  Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading and in kindergarten through second grade kids learn to read but from third grade on kids read to learn.  Your child will struggle in most academic areas if he or she struggles in reading comprehension.

Additional causes of reading problems include weakness in memory, attention, language, or processing speed.  Let’s figure out your child so you can provide support where it’s needed and build areas of strength.  With the right help your child can become a strong reader and even love to read.

We offer reading testing for dyslexia, learning disabilities, and processing problems.  Ready to help your child? Call 561-625-4125.