Pouting. Crying. Screaming. Fighting. If your child struggles with reading, these words may characterize your nightly reading routine. Teaching your child to read can sometimes feel like a losing battle; struggling readers may shut down or resist assistance, leaving you at a loss. How can you help your child?

You are not alone. According to a 2015 report from the Kids Count Data Center (a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation), 65 percent of U.S. fourth graders reported lower than average reading proficiency. As a parent, you may feel unqualified to help your child at home. You may even be considering tutoring services. Before, or in conjunction with, hiring a tutor, here are some strategies to help your struggling reader at home.

Set Up a Routine: Set aside a specific time and place for reading. Make it part of your child’s routine, either when he or she comes home from school or right before bedtime. You can create a reading corner, complete with pillows, blankets, books, and stuffed animals. Having a comforting, welcoming space may help your child feel excited about reading. Students who read 20 minutes a day end up reading 3,600 minutes in a school year, while students who only read five minutes a day will only read 900 minutes in a school year.

Read Aloud to Your Child: According to a study by Scholastic, only 34 percent of kids ages 6-8 and 17 percent of kids ages 9-11 are read aloud to at home. Reading aloud models proper reading techniques to children; they learn about rate, expression, and fluency from hearing adult readers. Perhaps more important is that reading aloud helps build motivation and can even create and foster a love of reading. If they learn to enjoy hearing stories, they will be more likely to want to read independently. Moreover, they may be motivated to read more challenging texts.

Help with Difficult Words: When your child comes across an unfamiliar word, do you give out the word or allow for struggle? Giving your child the word may stop him or her from learning how to decode; however, letting your child struggle may lead to undue frustration. You can actually guide your child using a few simple questions. Ask your child the following:

What is the beginning sound?
What vowels do you see in this word?
What sound do you think the vowel will make?
Can you try another vowel sound? (If it is not a “short a” sound, try a “long a” sound.)
Do any parts of the word look familiar? (For example, the ending -ing)
Can you break the word into chunks?
What word would make sense in this sentence? Does that match the letters in the word?
Does the picture give you any clues?

Remember to exercise patience with this process. A difficult word can seem even more difficult if your child feels extra pressure from you.

Ask Questions: Comprehension is a key component of reading proficiency. In addition to building comprehension skills, asking questions helps your child more deeply engage with the text. Talk about the plot, characters, setting, problem, and solution. Ask your child to make up alternate endings. Discussing literature can help reading become more interesting and enjoyable.

Visit the Library: You may have a very small household library. Many middle income households may have as few as 13 books per child. Take your child to the local library. Let him or her choose books that seem interesting. A greater variety of options may provide your child with the opportunity to find a book that he or she loves. Make sure to choose “good fit” books. If your child struggles with more than five words on a page, it is probably too difficult for independent reading.

Try a Reward System: Children who hate reading may need extrinsic motivation to read. You could create a sticker chart to document the amount of time read each day. After a certain number of minutes, your child could earn a special privilege, perhaps a trip to the bookstore. Positive reinforcement may be necessary at the beginning to help your child build solid reading habits. Eventually, the rewards should become less frequent.

Helping your child read can be a frustrating and at times, even impossible. There are many things you can do to help your child at home. If you child continues to struggle, he or she may need additional help from a tutor. BestCompany.com offers a list of ranked tutoring companies to help you choose the service that is right for you. To read real reviews of tutoring companies click here.

Tutoring Blog and Resources

Featured Posts

Reading Wars: How You Can Help Your Strug...

Top 5 Online Tutoring Tools

All Posts

Reading Wars: How You Can Help Your Struggling Reader at Home

Top 5 Online Tutoring Tools

Compare the top ranked companies

Find the right company for you.