Why Is My Child Struggling to Read? 5 Reading Skills Parents Should Know
Updated: Oct 8
When a child struggles with reading, it can be difficult for parents to figure out exactly what is going wrong.
Maybe your child avoids reading aloud. Maybe they guess at words instead of sounding them out. Maybe they can read a passage beautifully but have no idea what they just read. Or maybe reading homework that should take 15 minutes turns into a frustrating hour.
Here’s something important to understand: reading is not just one skill.
Strong reading requires several skills working together. Research on reading instruction has identified five essential components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension (National Center on Improving Literacy [NCIL], 2023; National Reading Panel [NRP], 2000).
When a child struggles in one or more of these areas, reading can become difficult. Understanding where the difficulty is happening is an important first step toward providing the right support.
Let’s break down five reading skills every parent should know.
1. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: Hearing the Sounds in Words
Before children can successfully connect sounds to letters, they need to recognize and work with the sounds they hear in spoken language.
Phonological awareness is the broader ability to recognize and work with the sound structures of spoken language, including words, syllables, rhymes, and individual sounds. Phonemic awareness is a more specific skill involving the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds, or phonemes, within spoken words (International Literacy Association [ILA], n.d.; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], n.d.).
For example, a child with strong phonemic awareness may be able to hear that the word ship contains three sounds:
/sh/ /i/ /p/
They may also be able to blend separate sounds together:
/m/ /a/ /p/ → map
Or break a word apart:
fish → /f/ /i/ /sh/
The ability to blend and segment phonemes helps prepare children to read and spell words (NCIL, 2023).
What difficulty may look like
A child struggling with phonological or phonemic awareness may have difficulty:
Recognizing rhyming words
Identifying the beginning or ending sound in a word
Breaking words into individual sounds
Blending sounds together to make a word
Removing, adding, or changing sounds within words
These skills are especially important during the early stages of reading development. Evidence-based recommendations for foundational reading instruction include teaching students to recognize and manipulate segments of sound in speech and connect those sounds to letters (Foorman et al., 2016).
2. Phonics and Decoding: Cracking the Reading Code
Once children understand that spoken words contain individual sounds, they need to learn how those sounds connect to written letters and letter combinations.
That is where phonics comes in.
Phonics involves the relationship between the sounds of spoken language and the letters or letter combinations that represent those sounds in print (NICHD, n.d.). Decoding occurs when a reader applies knowledge of these sound-symbol relationships and other word-reading skills to read written words.
Instead of seeing an unfamiliar word and simply guessing, a developing reader learns how to work through the word using the sound-symbol relationships and patterns they have been taught.
For example, when encountering the word sunset, a student may recognize sun and set, decode each part, and combine them to read the entire word.
Systematic phonics instruction is an important component of effective reading instruction, particularly as children learn to decode unfamiliar words (NRP, 2000).
What difficulty may look like
A child struggling with phonics or decoding may:
Guess words based on the first letter
Substitute one word for another
Have difficulty sounding out unfamiliar words
Forget previously taught letter-sound patterns
Read the same word differently each time it appears
Rely heavily on pictures or context to figure out words
Struggle with spelling
A child can be bright, curious, and an excellent conversationalist while still having difficulty decoding printed words.
3. Fluency: Reading Accurately and Smoothly
Have you ever listened to a child read something like this?
The... boy... went... to... the... store... and... he...
The child may technically be reading the words correctly, but so much mental effort is going toward reading each individual word that understanding the overall text can become more difficult.
That is where reading fluency comes in.
Fluency is the ability to read accurately with appropriate speed and expression. As decoding becomes increasingly automatic, readers are better able to direct their attention toward understanding what they are reading (NCIL, 2023).
What difficulty may look like
A child struggling with fluency may:
Read very slowly
Read word-by-word instead of in phrases
Pause frequently
Read in a flat or robotic voice
Lose their place while reading
Read accurately but require significant effort
Understand considerably more when someone else reads the text aloud
This is why simply telling a struggling reader to “read faster” usually isn't the answer.
Before focusing on speed, we need to understand why the child is reading slowly. Difficulty with decoding, automatic word recognition, or other foundational skills may be contributing to what appears to be a fluency problem.
4. Vocabulary and Morphology: Understanding Words and Their Meaningful Parts
A child may be able to pronounce every word on the page and still struggle to understand the text if they don't know what enough of those words mean.
That makes vocabulary an important part of reading development.
Vocabulary refers to the words we know and understand (NICHD, n.d.). Children build vocabulary through oral language, conversations, experiences, direct instruction, being read to, and their own reading.
But vocabulary development isn't only about learning the definitions of individual words. As children encounter increasingly complex language, they also benefit from understanding morphology.
Morphology refers to knowledge of the meaningful parts of words, including base words, roots, prefixes, and suffixes (Foorman et al., 2016).
For example, consider the word unhelpful:
un- + help + -ful
A student who understands these meaningful word parts can use that knowledge to help determine what an unfamiliar word means.
Morphological knowledge becomes particularly useful as students encounter longer and more academically complex words. Explicit instruction in prefixes, suffixes, and Greek and Latin roots can help students build word knowledge, determine the meanings of unfamiliar words, and support the decoding of complex multisyllabic words (Institute of Education Sciences [IES], n.d.).
Consider this sentence:
The scientist examined the specimen under the microscope.
A child might read every word correctly. But if they don't understand words such as examined or specimen, understanding the sentence becomes much more difficult.
What difficulty may look like
A child with weaknesses in vocabulary or morphology may:
Frequently ask what words mean
Understand everyday language but struggle with academic vocabulary
Have difficulty identifying base words, prefixes, suffixes, or roots
Struggle to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words using meaningful word parts
Have difficulty explaining relationships among related words
Misunderstand sentences despite reading the words correctly
Struggle increasingly as texts contain more complex academic language
Vocabulary and morphology become especially important as students move through school and encounter more sophisticated words in science, social studies, literature, and other subjects more sophisticated language in science, social studies, literature, and other subjects.
5. Reading Comprehension: Understanding What Was Read
Basically, we don't teach children to read just so they can pronounce words on a page.
We want them to understand them.
Reading comprehension is the ability to understand and make meaning from text. Comprehension involves more than simply remembering details. Readers draw upon vocabulary, background knowledge, knowledge of language and text structures, and their ability to connect ideas throughout a text (NCIL, 2023).
What difficulty may look like
A child struggling with comprehension may:
Read a passage but be unable to explain what happened
Have difficulty identifying the main idea
Struggle to answer questions about what they read
Have trouble making inferences
Forget information shortly after reading
Give answers that aren't supported by the text
Have difficulty summarizing
Understand individual sentences but struggle to connect ideas across a longer passage
And this is where identifying the actual reading problem becomes especially important.
Sometimes what appears to be a comprehension problem may begin somewhere else.
For example, if a child is struggling to decode many of the words in a passage, so much effort may be going toward identifying the words that understanding the text becomes more difficult. Foundational reading skills support students' eventual ability to read connected text accurately, fluently, and with understanding (Foorman et al., 2016).
Not Every Struggling Reader Struggles in the Same Way
This is one of the most important things I want parents to understand.
Two children can both be considered “struggling readers” and need completely different kinds of support.
One child may have strong comprehension but weak decoding skills.
Another may read words accurately and fluently but struggle to understand complex vocabulary.
Another child may have difficulty across several areas.
This is why reading intervention should not simply mean giving a child more reading practice.
Practice is important, but effective intervention should be targeted to the skills a child actually needs to develop. Evidence-based guidance emphasizes explicit instruction across foundational skills rather than treating reading development as a single, isolated ability (Foorman et al., 2016).
So, How Do You Know Where Your Child Is Struggling?
Start by paying attention to how your child reads, not simply whether they are reading below grade level.
Ask yourself:
Does my child guess at unfamiliar words?
Can they sound out words they haven't seen before?
Do they read slowly even when the words seem easy?
Can they tell me what they just read?
Do they understand considerably more when someone reads a passage aloud to them than when they read it independently?
Do they have difficulty spelling words that contain patterns they have already been taught?
These observations can provide useful clues, but a comprehensive reading assessment can provide a much clearer picture of a child's reading strengths and areas of need.
At Tutive®, our goal isn't simply to determine that a child is struggling with reading.
We want to understand why.
Once we identify where the breakdown is occurring, instruction can be intentionally targeted toward the skills that need additional support.
Because “my child struggles with reading” tells us there is a problem.
Understanding the problem helps us determine what to do next.
Need Additional Reading Support?
Tutive® provides personalized online reading tutoring and intervention for students in grades K–12.
We specialize in Structured Literacy and Orton-Gillingham-based instruction, supporting students who need assistance with phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, fluency, vocabulary and morphology, reading comprehension, spelling and encoding, written expression, and dyslexia-related reading difficulties.
Our individualized approach focuses on identifying learning gaps and providing targeted instruction to help students strengthen their literacy skills.
Schedule a free consultation today to discuss your child's reading needs and learn how Tutive® can help.
Individual results vary. Intervention timelines and student outcomes depend on individual learning needs, attendance, instructional frequency, retention, school instruction, and opportunities for practice.
About the Author
Dr. India "Miss India" Barnes is a K–12 Reading Specialist with a Doctor of Education in Leadership and advanced training in Orton-Gillingham and Structured Literacy. Through Tutive®, she has supported 100+ students and provided 2,500+ hours of structured literacy and Orton-Gillingham-informed reading intervention and tutoring. Through personalized 1:1 online instruction and in-person reading labs, she helps students strengthen reading, spelling, writing, foundational literacy skills, and academic confidence.
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. Institute of Education Sciences
National Center on Improving Literacy. (2023). The 5 big ideas of beginning reading. National Center on Improving Literacy
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. National Reading Panel report
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