Are you looking for ways to support students struggling with reading in your classroom? It is not uncommon for students to struggle with reading; what comes easy for one student might be difficult for others, which is why we often need to differentiate and modify our lessons.
Like they say, one size generally doesn’t fit all.
Teachers are often excited to connect with their students as the school year begins. However, challenges may arise during reading lessons, especially with students who exhibit disruptive behaviour.
Some students, while able to read a paragraph with minimal difficulty, struggle to engage with independent work and may frequently distract others. Despite occasionally answering questions, the student may find it hard to comprehend the material, becoming lost when asked to provide answers.
This behaviour raises questions about their reading comprehension skills and suggests that students struggling with reading may benefit from additional support to help them focus and fully engage with the text.
Struggling Readers vs. Reluctant Readers
Do you think the student described above is a struggling or reluctant reader? Could they be both?
Struggling readers can be reluctant readers – but there are also some noteworthy differences. Reluctant readers may be completely capable of reading but are disinterested or will not read. This may be due to a variety of reasons, such as a lack of focus, a dislike for the materials available, or not realizing the advantages of reading. Do you need book suggestions for your students? Check out this book list: Engaging Books for Reluctant and Struggling Readers.
Students struggling with reading are readers who genuinely have a difficult time learning how to read. These students may struggle with phonics and comprehension. As a result, these students can also be reluctant readers. Their difficulties with reading may cause them fear and stress, discouraging them from reading in general.
It is important to remember that not all reluctant readers are struggling readers, and not all students struggling with reading are reluctant. To help, it’s important to find the root cause of the student’s reading troubles.
If you are looking for strategies for reluctant readers, check out this article, 5 Strategies for Engaging Reluctant Readers, from Lexia Learning.
Reasons Why Some Students Struggle With Reading
Students struggling with reading may struggle for a variety of reasons, such as:
- Limited exposure and experience with books or other print materials
- Limited language skills and/or English as a second language
- Difficulty with sounding out words (decoding)
- Not recognizing the individual sounds in words (phonemic awareness)
- Speech or hearing difficulties
- Vision trouble, or trouble visually processing what they see
- Limited vocabulary and/or life experiences, which can impact comprehension
- Limited comprehension strategies
- Difficulty with memory (short-term, long-term, working)
- Trouble with attention or focus
This is not an exhaustive list, but it provides a starting point for educators and families to help students struggling with reading. Learn more about struggling readers in this article from Reading Rockets.
Ways to Support Students Struggling with Reading
The earlier a struggling reader receives quality assistance, the better. It is best to catch a struggling reader at an early age; however, it is never too late to help. This also applies to reluctant readers, who, if given enough time to avoid reading, could also negatively impact their skills.
To help students struggling with reading, start with some basic things:
Ensure the student is not struggling with hearing or vision.
After spending quality time with your students and some careful attention, you might have thought about whether or not one of these things might be of concern. If you feel there might be a medical issue that is causing the student to struggle with reading, connect with your Special Education Teacher and/or Principal to find out the process for bringing these concerns to the family.
It is important to remember that if a student receives medical attention, it might not immediately solve their reading difficulties. The student may have struggled with hearing or vision for a long time, which might have caused the delay in reading skills and strategies. Focus on helping your student(s) to practice their skills and move forward.
Next, determine if English is a second language.
Sometimes this can be part of the root cause for students struggling with reading.
If it is their second language, it may be helpful to remember they are still learning everything about our language, including sounds, word meanings, sentence structure, and possibly even letters.
Sometimes students do not have reading and writing fluency in their first language, so adding an additional language can be challenging.
Along with reading instruction, instruction in the English language may be very helpful. Many resources are available online but also check within your school administration to see how you might be able to access support for your student(s) from an English as a Second Language (ESL) Teacher. Ask these teachers for helpful tips and resources you can access for your student(s).
Assessing Students Struggling With Reading and Strategies for Practice
Once you have checked the aforementioned areas of concern, begin assessing and practicing the following areas as needed:
Phonemic and phonological awareness
Phonemic and phonological awareness are often the first things taught when teaching reading. Students with strong skills in these areas will have better chances of building strong reading skills. Even though these skills are usually taught in the early elementary grades, students of any age can (and should) practice these skills when necessary.
This article from Reading Rockets shares more information about Why Phonological Awareness Is Important for Reading and Spelling.
Phonemic awareness relates to spoken words and the individual sounds (phonemes) in words. It is the ability to combine sounds to form words (blending) and to break words apart into the individual sounds that make up the word (segmenting). This skill is more complex and is usually the last of the two to develop. It is a part of phonological awareness.
Phonological awareness involves phonemic awareness and skills such as counting syllables, identifying rhyming words, and recognizing alliteration (the repetition of beginning sounds, as in ‘Samantha sang a song about snails’).
- Check out this list by We Are Teachers of 40 activities to boost phonemic and phonological awareness skills. They require minimal prep and could be done at home with families too. These are geared for younger children but could be modified in some ways for older students.
- The website Sight Words also provides a free curriculum for teaching phonological and phonemic awareness. It includes a pacing guide as well as free assessment resource links.
- Bridging Foundational Reading Gaps in Middle School is an article from Edutopia that provides a middle school perspective on this topic.
Fluency
One of the keys to reading comprehension is fluency. Fluency is reading text at an appropriate rate and with accurate expression. When teaching fluency, teachers should focus on using text that is at a student’s instructional or independent level of learning, meaning word accuracy within the text should already be 90% or higher. Check out these articles What is the Definition of Fluency in Reading? and Six Fun Strategies for Increasing Reading Fluency from Lexia Learning.
Repetition and Modelling
Improving fluency skills often requires repetition and modelling. This can be done through repeated text readings in class and/or at home with an adult. However, it must involve modelling fluent oral reading as well as guided oral reading. While this can be done directly with the teacher, it could also be done through audiobooks.
Audiobooks
Teachers could also record their own modelling, but using an already published audiobook or eBook could be a welcome opportunity for the student to hear new voices. Students can even do this in phases by first listening to the model/audio, then reading along with the audio, and finally, reading the audiobook independently (without audio).
Reader’s Theatre
This is another way to accomplish repeated readings that provides a real, purposeful reason for doing so that will be less likely to cause boredom or frustration for the student. Reader’s Theatre also incorporates peers, which can encourage, support, and motivate students struggling with reading or reluctant readers. It also provides those readers with peer models of successful readers.
Partner Readings
This can be done with partners of all levels. It’s completely acceptable for a reader struggling with fluency to be partnered with another struggling reader or a stronger one. Sometimes, these partnerships can be teacher-chosen or student-chosen. The important thing to understand is that there is something to be learned from all classmates, whether they are struggling or successful!
Choral Reading
This is where all students read aloud the same text simultaneously, allowing students struggling with reading to practice fluency without as much pressure as being “called on” to read aloud independently. It also provides another opportunity for peer modelling. You could try this strategy with your students by using poetry. Short-levelled articles could also be used for fluency/repeated reading practice. Check out ReadWorks and Read Theory for reading resources.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary is yet another key to reading comprehension. Check out Creative Ways To Teach Vocabulary to learn more about this topic. You can also reference Basics: Vocabulary | Reading Rockets.
One best practice for teaching vocabulary is teaching morphographs or morphological awareness. This means explicit instruction on topics such as prefixes, suffixes, base words, and endings. This can really help students understand a word, its relation to other words, and its meaning as a whole.
These two morphology resources were created for middle school students:
- Middle School Greek Prefixes Morphology Unit and Worksheets
- Middle School Greek Roots Morphology Unit and Worksheets
Another best practice for students struggling with reading is direct instruction of vocabulary. Some words must be directly taught, as they may be specific to the given text and not part of the student’s oral vocabulary or experiences. Not doing this can significantly affect comprehension of the text.
Other strategies for increasing vocabulary for students struggling with reading include:
- Using/teaching context clues
- Having students use vocabulary words orally and in writing
- Introducing students to vocabulary words in other contexts
- Playing word games
- Reading and conversing with students daily
- Use the Frayer Model teaching strategy
Visit the Reading Rockets Classroom Strategy Library for additional vocabulary instruction strategies. Teachers can also find more strategies in the article Reading Intervention Strategies for Struggling Readers from HMH.
Reading Comprehension Resources
Reading comprehension is a key part of helping students understand what they read. Like any skill, reading needs to be practiced regularly. The article 5 Core Components of Reading – Comprehension provides an overview of this topic.
- ReadWorks provides a variety of levelled passages on a wide array of topics. They can be printed or shared with students digitally for online completion. Some passages also have a paired text for further reading comprehension and analysis practice. Furthermore, passages can be used independently of each other or as a part of an entire instructional unit with other ReadWorks passages.
- Read Theory allows students to sign into their accounts and practice reading comprehension independently. It is an adaptive program that will assess each student and then assign appropriately levelled practice. This can easily be used as practice at home or school. It also provides access to printable, levelled worksheets.
- Newsela has a variety of resources to support classroom teachers. Newsela Essentials provides levelled non-fiction news articles for students. There are free and paid options.
- Article of the Week is a literacy strategy created by Kelly Gallagher. Teachers select a non-fiction article to share with their class. Here is a suggested article of the week structure. On Mondays, read the article together as a class. The teacher can read the article out loud to model good reading. Students are then provided with a few comprehension questions about the article. Teachers can check over these questions to assess students’ comprehension. For the rest of the week, students work on writing a response to one of the two provided thinking questions. Students can select either prompt. Both Kelly Gallagher and Dave Stuart Jr. provide article of the week resources on their websites. You can also find more resources listed here.
Teachers can find additional resources here: 5 Ways to Support Students Who Struggle With Reading Comprehension.
Family Resources
Resources should be provided for families to use at home. Parents often want to help but just do not know where to begin. Resources from the school can be extremely beneficial, and it can be as simple as one reading passage per week that they practice with their child every night.
For help figuring out why a student is struggling with reading and specific tips for kids, teachers, and parents, visit Reading Rockets: Target the Problem.
Additional Resources
- Helping All Readers
- Ascend Learning Center
- When Older Students Can’t Read
- What are Struggling Readers?
- 9 reasons kids struggle with reading – and what you can do about it
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