Understanding Reading Difficulties, Red Flags, and When to Seek Support
Is your child struggling to read? Learn common reasons for reading difficulties, reading red flags by grade level, milestones to watch for, and when it may be time to seek additional support.
“My child can read the word on one page, but then doesn’t know it on the next.”
“They understand the story when I read it to them, but not when they read it themselves.”
“Reading takes forever.”
“They guess at words instead of sounding them out.”
“They hate reading.”
These are concerns I hear from parents regularly. And understandably, they often lead to the same question: Why is my child struggling to read?
The answer isn't always simple because reading isn't one skill. A child can struggle with recognizing and manipulating sounds, connecting sounds to letters, decoding unfamiliar words, reading words automatically, reading fluently, understanding language, or comprehending what they read. Research on reading development has consistently identified multiple skills that contribute to successful reading, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000).
That means the first question shouldn't simply be, “Is my child a good reader?” A better question is: “Which part of reading is difficult for my child?”
It can be easy to think of reading as simply looking at words and knowing what they say. But there is a lot happening behind the scenes. One helpful way to understand reading is through the Simple View of Reading, which describes reading comprehension as depending on both decoding and language comprehension (Hoover & Gough, 1990). In other words, a child needs to be able to identify the words on the page and understand the language those words communicate. Within those broader areas of decoding and comprehension are several important skills. Below is a list of the skills, what they mean, and what it may look like if a child has a deficit in that area.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. A child might blend /c/ /a/ /t/ to make cat, separate fish into its individual sounds /f/ /i/ /sh/, or identify the first sound in sun. These skills happen with spoken language before we even add letters. Children struggling with phonemic awareness may have trouble recognizing rhyme, identifying individual sounds, blending sounds together, or pulling words apart into sounds.
Phonics and decoding involve understanding the relationships between letters and sounds and using those relationships to read unfamiliar words. Children with phonics or decoding difficulty may know letter sounds in isolation but have trouble putting them together when reading words. They may memorize familiar words or rely heavily on pictures, the first letter of a word, or context to guess what a word might be instead of actually reading the word.
Word recognition and automaticity develop as children become increasingly efficient at recognizing words. A beginning reader may need to carefully sound out a word, but with sufficient instruction and practice, word reading should become more automatic. If a child can decode accurately but reading remains slow and effortful, they likely need support developing automaticity and fluency.
Fluency includes more than reading quickly. Fluent reading involves accuracy, an appropriate rate, phrasing, and expression. Children with fluency struggles may sound monotone, ignore punctuation, or add pauses where there shouldn’t be one.
Vocabulary and language comprehension help children understand what the words and sentences actually mean. Children who read the words beautifully but have difficulty explaining what they read may need support in vocabulary, background knowledge, oral language, sentence comprehension, or other aspects of language comprehension rather than decoding.
Reading comprehension requires children to make meaning from what they read. When reading is extremely slow and laborious, so much effort can go toward figuring out the words that understanding and remembering the text becomes more difficult (National Reading Panel, 2000).
These skills work together. That's why two children who both appear to be “struggling with reading” may need completely different support. The goal is for children to develop the skills necessary to read unfamiliar words rather than having to guess them.
Learning differences such as dyslexia can also contribute to persistent difficulty learning to read and spell. However, not every child who struggles with reading has dyslexia, and families don't need to wait for a diagnosis before a child's specific reading needs are addressed.
Attention, working memory, speech and language difficulties, hearing or vision concerns, and other individual factors may also influence a child's reading performance. The important part is determining what is actually creating the barrier for that child.
Children don't all learn to read on exactly the same timeline. A checklist should never be used to diagnose a reading disability. Instead, I encourage parents to pay attention to patterns, persistence, and progress. General risk indicators change as reading demands increase. In the early grades, concerns may center on phonemic awareness and letter-sound knowledge. As children progress through elementary school, persistent problems with decoding, fluency, spelling, and comprehension become increasingly important to investigate (Reading Rockets, n.d.-b).
Kindergarten
recognize or produce rhyming words
learn letter names and their corresponding sounds
identify beginning or ending sounds in spoken words
blend sounds together to make a word
break simple words into individual sounds
connect sounds in spoken language with letters in print
Difficulty with phonological and phonemic awareness and learning common letter-sound relationships are among the early indicators associated with later reading difficulty.
First Grade
continues to struggle with blending or segmenting sounds
has difficulty remembering common letter-sound relationships
struggles to decode simple unfamiliar words
relies heavily on pictures or context to guess words
substitutes a word that makes sense instead of reading the word that is actually printed
reads very slowly or with significant effort
has difficulty spelling simple words using the sounds they hear
By first grade, assessment of reading development commonly includes phonemic awareness, decoding, word identification, and text reading, with automaticity becoming increasingly relevant as the year progresses (Gersten et al., 2009).
Second Grade
decoding unfamiliar words
recognizing increasingly complex spelling patterns
reading words accurately and automatically
reading connected text smoothly
spelling
reading at a pace that allows the child to focus on meaning
remembering or explaining what was read
Continued difficulty decoding unfamiliar words, slow or labored reading, poor spelling, and comprehension difficulties are important indicators to investigate in second and third grade.
Third Grade and Beyond
slow or laborious oral or silent reading
difficulty reading multisyllabic words
frequent guessing or word substitutions
persistent spelling difficulties
avoidance of reading
difficulty keeping up with reading-heavy assignments
comprehension that is significantly stronger when someone else reads the material aloud
increasing frustration as texts become longer and more complex
Reading difficulties don't always disappear once a child reaches the upper elementary grades. In fact, sometimes they become more obvious because the demands of school change.A child who compensated well with pictures, memorized words, context, or relatively simple early texts may have a much harder time once those supports are no longer enough.
A child does not need to demonstrate every red flag before you ask for help.
Parents usually know to watch for milestones such as learning letters and beginning to read words. Some equally important milestones are easier to overlook.
Your child begins decoding instead of guessing. One of the biggest shifts I watch for is whether a child approaches an unfamiliar word by looking closely at the letters and using what they know about sounds and spelling patterns. Guessing from a picture or thinking of a word that would make sense in the sentence can sometimes produce the correct answer, but it doesn't demonstrate that the child can actually read that word. The goal isn't to become a better guesser. It's to become a more accurate reader.
Reading becomes increasingly automatic.Being able to sound out a word is an important milestone—but it isn't the end goal. A child who has to laboriously decode nearly every word is using a tremendous amount of mental energy just to get through the sentence. With appropriate instruction and practice, word recognition should become increasingly efficient.
Fluency starts to sound like language. Parents sometimes focus heavily on reading speed. But faster isn't automatically better. Listen for accuracy, phrasing, expression, and attention to punctuation, too. Fluency supports comprehension because increasingly efficient word reading allows the reader to devote more attention to meaning (National Reading Panel, 2000).
Listening comprehension and reading comprehension begin to come together. This is one I especially want parents to notice. Maybe your child can listen to an advanced chapter book and tell you exactly what happened. They understand the vocabulary, make inferences, remember details, and discuss the story beautifully. But when they independently read a much simpler passage, their comprehension falls apart. That difference gives us information. Remember, successful reading comprehension depends on both decoding and language comprehension (Hoover & Gough, 1990). If a child understands language well but cannot efficiently access that language through print, the difficulty may be more closely related to word reading than to their ability to understand the ideas.
Maybe. Children do develop at different rates, and one difficult week—or even one difficult skill—doesn't automatically mean a child has a reading disability. But persistent reading difficulties shouldn't simply be assumed to disappear with time.
“Wait and see” isn't an intervention.
If a child is struggling because an important foundational skill hasn't developed, additional time by itself doesn't teach that missing skill. Evidence-based guidance recommends screening young students for reading difficulties, providing targeted instruction based on identified needs, and monitoring progress so instruction can be adjusted when students aren't responding adequately (Gersten et al., 2009). This becomes especially important because the demands placed on readers continue to increase. Words become longer. Vocabulary becomes more complex. Texts become denser. And children increasingly need reading to access science, social studies, math problems, directions, and independent assignments.
You don't have to wait until a child is significantly behind—or completely discouraged—to start asking questions.
This is one of the most important things I want parents to understand. A child who struggles with reading may:
avoid it
complain
rush
guess
shut down
ask someone else to read for them
say “I don't know” before trying
insist that they hate reading
From the outside, some of those behaviors can look like a motivation problem. Sometimes motivation is part of the picture. But we also need to consider another possibility: Sometimes “I don't want to read” means “reading is really hard for me.”
Avoidance can develop when a child repeatedly encounters a task that requires substantially more effort for them than it does for their peers. Reading Rockets notes that children experiencing laborious reading may resist reading aloud or avoid reading altogether.
Telling a child to try harder doesn't teach phonemic awareness. Rewards don't teach decoding. More independent reading doesn't replace explicit instruction in a skill the child hasn't learned yet. Practice matters—but practice and instruction are not interchangeable. We can't motivate a child out of a skill deficit. Before assuming a child is lazy, unmotivated, or careless, we need to understand what the task is asking them to do and whether they have the skills to do it successfully.
You don't need to panic over one difficult skill or compare your child's reading to every other child in the class. Instead, look at the bigger picture. Ask yourself:
Has this difficulty persisted over time?
Is my child making progress with instruction?
Does reading seem significantly more effortful than other academic tasks?
Is frustration or avoidance increasing?
Does my child continue to rely on guessing?
Is there a noticeable difference between what my child understands when listening and what they can read independently?
Have teachers or tutors expressed concerns?
Is there a family history of dyslexia or significant reading difficulty?
If concerns persist, it is reasonable to ask for more information rather than simply waiting.
Instead of only asking, “Is my child behind in reading?” try asking more specific questions:
How is my child doing with phonemic awareness?
Can they decode unfamiliar words independently?
Are they relying on guessing?
Is their word reading becoming more automatic?
How is their oral reading fluency?
How is their spelling?
How does their reading comprehension compare with their listening comprehension?
What specific reading skills are being targeted right now?
How is their progress being measured?
Those questions give you much more useful information than a reading level or a general statement that your child is “a little behind.” Assessment shouldn't simply tell us that a child is struggling. It should help us understand what to teach next. Screening can identify children who may be at risk, while more diagnostic assessment can provide information about specific skill needs and guide instruction (Institute of Education Sciences, 2024).
When a child struggles to read, parents understandably want an answer. Is it dyslexia? Is it ADHD? Are they behind? Do they need tutoring? Will they catch up? Those can all be reasonable questions. But before we jump to a label—or assume the child simply needs more practice—I want to know something more specific: Where is reading breaking down?
Is it hearing and manipulating sounds?
Connecting sounds with letters?
Decoding words?
Reading automatically?
Reading fluently?
Understanding language?
Comprehending text?
Once we understand the barrier, we can make much better decisions about instruction and support.A reading struggle doesn't tell us how intelligent, capable, or motivated a child is. It tells us that we need more information. And families don't have to wait until a child has struggled for years to start looking for it.
References
Foorman, B. R., Beyler, N., Borradaile, K., Coyne, M., Denton, C. A., Dimino, J., Furgeson, J., Hayes, L., Henke, J., Justice, L., Keating, B., Lewis, W., Sattar, S., Streke, A., Wagner, R., & Wissel, S. (2016). Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in kindergarten through 3rd grade (NCEE 2016-4008). National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
Gersten, R., Compton, D., Connor, C. M., Dimino, J., Santoro, L., Linan-Thompson, S., & Tilly, W. D. (2009). Assisting students struggling with reading: Response to intervention and multi-tier intervention in the primary grades. A practice guide (NCEE 2009-4045). National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
Hoover, W. A., & Gough, P. B. (1990). The simple view of reading. Reading and Writing, 2, 127–160. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00401799
National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Reading Rockets. (n.d.-a). Early signs of a reading difficulty.
Reading Rockets. (n.d.-b). Reading risk indicators by grade level.
Additional Resources
Institute of Education Sciences — Foundational Reading Skills Practice Guide
Reading Rockets — Reading Risk Indicators by Grade Level
Reading Rockets — Early Signs of a Reading Difficulty
Institute of Education Sciences — Empowering Young Readers
National Reading Panel — National Reading Panel Publications