The Reason Bright Kids Often Struggle To Read and How To Help

Failing to learn to read is a devasting blow to a young child, and it is usually quite unnecessary. The underlying reason why many bright children find reading hard is that the early reading books they use encourage the wrong techniques. The warning signs are easy to spot.

However, this problem has proved easy to fix.

The Pattern of Failure

Things often start out well. A child will learn most of the alphabet fine and then even a few words without seeming to have a problem.

But as the child starts to read books, you will see some guessing of words going on. And often the guess has no relation to the word on the page, but makes sense in the context.

The guessing and difficulty just seem to increase as the child moves up to more complicated books.

Eventually you get an implosion of confidence, usually around the age of 6 or 7. By this stage the child is very reluctant to read at all.

This can become a permanent situation, without the right help. That will destroy the child's changes of reaching anything like his or her full potential. And yet we find it can usually be fixed in a few weeks.

The Cause

Most children find text very baffling initially. And so they will use whatever seems the easiest way to decode it. A child with a strong visual memory will use that strength to memorise words by sight. That will seem the easiest option.

The child will probably be taught some phonics in class. But that does not mean that it really makes sense. And it is hard for a teacher to really know that, or fix it in the time available.

Now the concept behind most early reading books actually encourages this memorisation approach. They use very few words which get repeated a lot.

But, in reality, the child is not reading at all, but using a shortcut. And is travelling down a blind alley with no exit.

We need to guide the child out and carefully into the right direction.

How To Fix It

The first thing is to give the child a method by which to remember all the different phonemes. For instance, in the Easyread Coaching System we do that by using bright and active visual images which are very easy for the child to remember. They become the hooks by which the child can remember all the different sounds. This is a classic memory enhancement technique first developed by the Ancient Greeks.

Then you need to present exercises that break the memorisation and guessing habbit. The Easyread Coaching System uses games and exercises specially designed to do that.

Once the child is redirected onto the right path, you need to make it easy to travel. Confidence is further built by steady reading practise. In Easyread we allow the child to read text unaided each day, by floating the images connected to each phoneme over the text. In that way, the child always has support when puzzling over a word.

Using these simple techniques you will see dramatic progress. Children who have become totally frustrated and depressed can learn to read in 2-6 months.

Article Source: http://www.articleselections.com

For more information on phonics and literacy for children and more on the Easyread Coaching System, click EasyRead Coaching System
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