Reading help for kids

Most reading help fails because it is aimed at the wrong problem. Here is how to find out which problem you have, in about five minutes, and what to do about each one.

Start here · ages 4 to 9

"Reading help" covers at least five different problems that look identical from the outside. A child who reads badly might have weak phonics, thin sight vocabulary, poor phrasing, weak comprehension, or no confidence — and the help for each is different.

Working out which one you have is the whole game, and it takes about five minutes.

Step 1 — Find out what is actually wrong

Have your child read something at their grade level, aloud, for one minute. Do not correct them while the clock runs. Count the words; subtract anything misread, skipped, or that you supplied after about three seconds.

Put it into the words per minute calculator. You get three things: speed, accuracy, and where that sits for their grade.

Then read off which problem you have:

Step 2 — Do the one thing that matches

If it is decoding

They cannot reliably turn letters into sounds. More reading practice will not fix this and will make them miserable. Go back to phonics, in order, ten minutes a day. The sequence is here.

If it is fluency

They can read the words but it does not flow. The fix is repeated oral reading: the same short passage, read aloud, three or four times across a week, with somebody listening.

The first read is work. The third sounds like reading. The child hears themselves improve, which is the part that matters.

If it is comprehension

They read it fine and cannot tell you what happened. Stop at the end of each page and ask one question — and make at least half of them *why* and *how can you tell*, not *what*. More here.

If it is confidence

This one is real and often underneath the others. A child who has decided they are bad at reading will avoid the only activity that would fix it.

• Drop the difficulty. Let them succeed at something easy for a fortnight
• Stop correcting mid-sentence. Note the word, come back later
• Let them hear themselves on a good day — hearing it is more convincing than being told
• Read to them above their level, for pleasure, with nothing asked in return
• Never compare them to a sibling or a classmate. They already know

What helps regardless of the problem

• Ten minutes, most days. Short and regular beats long and occasional, every time.
• Out loud, with somebody listening. Silent reading is the goal, not the method. You cannot help with a problem you cannot hear.
• Text at the right level. If they cannot read 90% of the words, that book is for sharing, not practicing.
• Read to them, above their level. Their listening comprehension runs years ahead of their reading. That is where vocabulary and story sense come from.
• Stop before they are tired. Ending on a success is what makes tomorrow possible.

When to ask for more help

Ask the school directly — *is my child's progress what you would expect, and if not, what help is available?* — when:

• Six to eight weeks of consistent work has moved nothing
• They cannot hear rhyme or blend sounds at five or six
• There is a family history of dyslexia or late reading
• Reading is causing genuine distress
• A gap is widening rather than closing

"Wait and see" is the advice that costs the most. Early help works much better than late help, and the gap between a struggling reader and their classmates widens every year it is left alone.

Free things worth using first

• Reading fluency norms — what is typical, by grade and time of year
• Words per minute calculator — where your reader is today
• Sight words by grade — all 220 Dolch words
• Reading milestones by age — preschool to Grade 3

Free chart from myfluentreader.com — reading fluency benchmarks, a words-per-minute calculator and the full sight-word lists, free and without signing up.