Reading difficulties are faced by most children and can occur due to several reasons. Learning information is a sequential process involving a combination of three different components, namely decoding, comprehension and retention. It is critical for parents and teachers to identify the source of a child’s difficulty and employ practical strategies that can help to improve reading skills.

Given here are areas in which the child may face reading difficulties:

Decoding

Students with reading difficulties may face problems in decoding the sound of different letters in a word. An important aspect of learning involves breaking up of the phonemes in order to recognize a word. For instance, children with appropriate learning skills may be able to separate the different sounds in the word ‘bag’. However, a child with reading difficulty may find it difficult to judge the meaning between the three letters and how their sounds can be combined to form a word.

Signs of problems in decoding:

• Issues in sounding out words
• Difficulty in recognizing individual words
• Confusion between various letters and their sound
• Lack of expression in reading
• Missing punctuation marks while reading
• Slow reading pace

Comprehension

Comprehending any information requires the ability to properly decode it. When children successfully decode the sound and connection of different words, they are in a better position to concentrate on the paragraph that they are reading. When word recognition is not problematic, children can easily understand and remember the information.

Signs of problems in comprehension:

• Confusion in the meaning of individual words and their usage in sentences
• Difficulty connecting different contexts in a paragraph
• Missing out or skipping significant details
• Lack of concentration while reading
• Inability to distinguish between important and trivial information

Retention

This requires the mastery of both decoding and comprehension skills. Proper retention of information relies on a child’s cognitive skills and the ability to organize, summarize as well as retrieve relevant ideas. They should be able to link the present information to something they already know. This, along with sufficient practice, will allow the children to store any information in their long-term memory that can be recalled whenever required.

Signs of problems in retention:

• Difficulty relating what is being currently read with previous knowledge
• Trouble in real-life application of information gathered
• Difficulty memorizing or recapitulating the information read

See-N-Read Reading Tools are aimed at improving reading skills among children of all age groups. The research-based products can help children overcome moderate to severe reading and study skill deficiencies. For more information, you can call us at (630) 236 – 5592.