3 Things You Need To Know...

1. Most students do learn to read successfully in a classroom setting, and that's great! However, if you child isn't learning to read, or did learn to read but is still struggling to with fluency and comprehension, don't worry...there's hope.
2. When a neuro-typical child doesn't learn to read at a developmentally appropriate pace, it's usually due to a combination of reasons. Here are some potential factors that can keep a typical child from learning to read efficiently:
   • Low auditory processing skills. This is an important pre-reading skill and if it's deficient, learning to read will be VERY difficult.
   • Poor attention. If a child cannot pay attention long enough to absorb and understand reading instruction, then they will struggle to learn to read.
   • Poor memory. If your child is hearing but not retaining what he/she is being taught when it comes to reading, then they will struggle to become successful readers.
   • Poor decoding skills. If your child doesn't understand the basics of decoding (sounding out) words, they will likely have a lot of sight-words that they can recall, but will not have the ability to sound out words they haven't seen before.
   • Slow processing. If your child processes information slowly, they will learn to read at a rate that is delayed compared to their peers. This may mean that by the time your child is beginning to process reading instruction, the class has moved on.
3. All of the above skills can be trained and improved. Reading can be trained and improved. Grab the confetti, strike up the band, there's hope for your struggling reader!