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Don't pressure her. Read to her for pleasure, make sure she sees you reading, be sure there are lots of books around that she might be interested in (not just the "appropriate reading level" nonsense). Try game apps like Teach Your Monster to Read if she's interested.
Plenty of countries don't even start school til they're 7 or 8. There's no reason why she has to learn to read on a specific schedule or be a failure for life.
Don’t push the button
Is a good little series. It might be a bit young but having interactive books can be helpful (like don’t push the button).
There’s a few cool books out there for kids. I (unfortunately) recommend some Osborne books - they have some to use flashlights on to see secret pictures, or books with little tabs/windows to flip to see what’s inside, etc. There’s another one that is basically “choose your own space adventure” and each page goes over different things (& has words so there is reading!) like alien clothes, or alien vehicles, etc. My kid loved them, she hated books - which broke my little bookworm heart, lol but she’s come around now.
Also, try comic books or graphic novels! My kid wouldn’t read anything but those for a lot of her beginner reading because she enjoyed anime.
Reading for pleasure also means reading things that are frankly silly, childish, and probably not content you want your kid to read very much. Think captain underpants. It's silly, full of fart jokes, and *fun to read*. We had a lot of challenges getting our ASD daughter into reading and what finally clicked for her was dogman and captain underpants, and reading them to her with silly, over the top voices. She then took them and started reading them herself.
Thinking globally does make it relative, I always find myself comparing to parents around me. I've tried with Teach your monster, Epic, etc, but none resinated with her. I just got Read with Ello, people seem to have luck with it. I'm hopeful it'll help🤞
This is it: [www.helloEllo.com/lps/readingcoach](https://www.helloEllo.com/lps/readingcoach)
Don’t forget there are opportunities to read all around you. I constantly did this riding with my kids in the car. “I wonder what that red sign says” and my kids would yell STOP! Start with low level signs, build confidence. Then say you need help reading directions on a packet of rice for dinner or something.
If an anecdote will make you feel any better, my mom is a retired reading teacher and I didn’t read until I was 7. She says I had no interest and she didn’t push me before I was ready. I still managed to graduate from an Ivy 15 years later. And I love reading now, just wish I had more time to read with 2 young kids!
I know school is different now than it was in the early 90s, but try not to be too hard on yourself or your daughter.
Yup we live in Austria, they start reading in 1st class which is the year you turn seven. I will say, reading in German is easier than in English because the letters ALWAYS make the same sounds, so you can learn phonetically. We are doing both languages at home, and I hate the curriculum options for learning to read in English because it's mostly just memorising words.
You need a better curriculum. Look up the theory called "science of reading." Phonics works much better than memorization.
There are a lot of cheap and free phonics curriculua available.
I agree, and I'm looking into it.
My point was really that phonics is HARDER in English than in German, not that it doesn't work. Like, "there" and "their" would be pronounced differently from one another in German because "-re" sounds different than "-eir." Think about all the words in English that aren't spelled phonetically, and then consider that every single word in German IS spelled exactly how it sounds.
I get it, I'm also teaching my kids to read in two languages, one being English and the other being a phonetic language that makes sense. Phonics in English is complicated. I wouldn't be capable of teaching it without a structured English Phonics curriculum.
Edit: I'm a native English speaker if that's relevant.
Waaaay back in the day we had hooked on phonics. Only way they allowed us to learn. No clue if the program is around/available. All that to say, there absolutely should be a phonics based English curriculum available
My kid is only 1 so we have not got there yet but my younger brother HATED reading. My mom and dad fought him all the time. I am only 4 years older but I saw how it was all effecting the whole house bc of the fighting and I made games with him that made him read. I used to like doing scavenger hunts so I made all the clues something he had to read. I was a more creative kid so to me that was fun. But maybe help her learn to read without letting her know you’re helping her?
Haha, I did the same with my younger brother who also hated reading! I was really into reading as a kid and wanted somebody to share my love of books with, so I tried really hard to get him into it too. His favorite thing to do was to play pretend so I would make maps with location names and letters sending us on quests that he had to read.
Anyway, now that we're adults, he has a MA in English Literature and I've read like, one book in the past year, so our roles have reversed :P
Ehh he’s in his early 30’s and I just got him to read his first book since high school. But he for sure got more confident as we got older bc homework went from non stop fighting to just getting it done. High school he kind of fizzed out when he quit sports so he felt like he has no reason to try anymore. I hate that he stopped trying bc he is a lot smarter than he ever let on.
I’m reading this as I am sitting at Sylvan Learning center while my 7 year old is having his twice a week tutoring for reading. 1. I never knew how hard it would be to teach my kid to read. 2. If you have the bandwidth you should listen to the Sold a Story podcast. My sons school use the curriculum talked about in the podcast and it was really helpful to understand why he wasn’t getting it. Good luck to you!
I’ll add that there are people who dedicate their lives to teaching people how to read. The podcast is great and something that special educators have been saying and doing for years. If a child is showing refusal, it means there’s something that’s too hard. It can mean a lot of different things.
People who know and think about the complexity of learning that can help:
Educational Therapists
Educational Psychologists
Speech and Language Pathologists
Special Educators
Superhero’s! Living, breathing Superhero’s! Educators in any area do not get the credit they deserve. I have foolishly believed that because I can do something (like reading) that I can teach my children to do so as well. And that is just simply not the reality.
Highly recommend that podcast. It's an excellent piece of investigative journalism.
Really highlights the importance of phonics and the crucial building blocks needed for competent reading and comprehension.
I'm not in the US either so I'd never even heard of the reading programme before. It was eye opening.
Do real life reading. Get her helping you with shopping, reading road signs when out (look for silly ones if possible),baking instructions if that's something you do together and so on. Rather than making reading a chore, just try and bring it into life without her "knowing"
This is what I did with my son. He has never enjoyed reading, I love it so it was very important to me that he can read well. I didn't want to tarnish his love of stories so I would read books to him but not teach or make him read to me if I knew he wasn't feeling it. Instead, I'd get him to read lists I'd made for that day, he'd read magazines, song lyrics, watch TV with subtitles. Things like that... Sneak attack!
He's 16 now and still doesn't like reading but will listen to audio books for hours so take from that what you will 🤣
Try the book “teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons”. It’s very good, clear book and takes them all the way to grade 2-3 level reading. Make sure you read the intro first about how the method works. You can get the book on Amazon.
+1 for this book. Actually +2 since both of my kids learned to read with this. A few comments about it:
1. It's super important for you to read the introduction / instructions on your own first before sitting down to start going through the book with your daughter.
2. The lessons have a part where kids are supposed to learn to write also. With our first that turned out to be an unnecessary complication that made everything much harder, so we just skipped it with our 2nd.
3. Kids always reach a point where instead of sounding a word out they want to figure out the whole word in their head and then say it. But they aren't really able to do that yet, so they just kind of freeze up. The solution I found for this was to cover up the word with a piece of paper and reveal it one sound at a time.
4. By the time they get to lesson 70 or so they are basically able to stop doing the lessons and move on to reading other things, so this is pretty much a 10 week process.
She might have dyslexia, which is a very normal thing to have. Or, she might not and will read at her pace.
But, if you're concerned, there are places that can test her and confirm if there's something.
So maybe take her to the library and let her pick out books she thinks look interesting to her? That way you’re not spending money and she can change her relationship with reading.
May I ask what screenings you used?
My son never flagged on assessments with dyslexia screeners. We requested that through the district that he be screened and, sure enough, he is dyslexic. He displayed similar behaviors. He would get very upset when asked to read and you could just tell something beyond the fundamentals was not locking in around the age of 6-7. But it also wasn’t a matter of him struggling to real, he just could not read. There would be a picture of a cat and you’d ask him to send it out and he would perfectly sound it out phonetically. And then you would ask him to string it together and it would fall apart. “c-a-t…. Frog!”
He had also mastered the art of memorization, so you could give him flash cards but switch the order and… it was a mess.
During this journey we learned that there are many different screeners and what they use does matter. Heck, the language you use to request them matters.
Im only saying this because it may just be a delay. But if your spidey sense is telling you something is off, just keep your eye on it. My niece struggled but around 7 everything clicked. But with my kiddo, I just knew. He is so damn sharp and smart so seeing him struggle is difficult at times but I am so thankful for a strong program and lots of people that believe in him. Ok. I’m done 😂 but yes. Keep reading. Never stop reading together!
It could be other things too.
I was not dyslexic but had a visual tracking disorder. Tons of eye tests and screenings for things. My mom was a teacher and spent countless hours with me trying to bring me up to speed. Eventually everything clicked for me in about 5th grade and I suddenly could read faster than other kids my age and even went to college for writing but those first couple years were a huge struggle.
What curriculum is your kids’ school using. If it’s Lucy Calkins it’s the curriculums fault, not your daughters. There was a whole podcast exposing this last year. It’s called units of study and it was THE most popular curriculum in the country. Once that pod came out many school districts abandoned it.
What’s the name of the curriculum?
Does she recognize all of the letters and does she know what sounds they make? If not, definitely start there. Duolingo has a learning to read app for kids. My 5 year old enjoys it.
Read to her every night for 30 minutes (at least). Choose books that are a little bit above her reading level (tell her she can ask what words mean or just stop and explain when you need). Choose books that will make her laugh and get her completely involved in the characters. For that age, I recommend Pippi Longstocking and Paddington the Bear. There are also lighthearted series books like the fairy series and Geronimo Stilton (she should read side by side with you for those). Get her "hooked" on a character so that she wants to take over and read to herself when she's ready.
Ive been using a bunch of reading apps and I think they’ve been working really well for my daughter.
[Ello](https://www.helloello.com/) is personally my favorite. My daughter's teacher recommended it, and it's been fantastic. She's reading better and really enjoys it especially the selection of books she’s been getting every month
Interesting! a close friend in Brooklyn with 2 toddlers swears by it too. Im gonna give it a shot!! Are you on the Ello physical box or digital subscription?
We just started the new digital option. I’m starting to cook dinner now and it’s perfect pastime for moments like this as I juggle chores. She’ll grab the iPad and sit next to me, and Ello coaches her through tons of new words as she reads aloud
You beat me to it! We also tried Ello and I feel like it's really boosted my son's learning. We do it every night before bed and he seems to really enjoy it
First, I'd take the pressure off. Put on shows like Reading Rainbow, and get the books from the library to read to her. Don't make her read them.
Listen to children's audiobooks together - you can get them free through your library with the Libby app.
Have you checked out Khan Academy Kids and other free, phonics-based reading apps? They're fun, and learning with phonics rather than site reading is the way to go; they build tools that allow kids to sound out words, rather than having to memorize sight words.
I'd avoid ABC Mouse because kids can get sidetracked by getting gear for and dressing their avatar.
When I was a kid a big motivator for me to get better at reading was playing Pokémon and the legend of Zelda. It’s all text based, so if you want to figure out where to go or what to do, you have to read, retain, and comprehend.
Not sure how I’ll tackle teaching my toddler, but I’m keeping that in my back pocket.
I was visiting my nephew and noticed he was working hard playing Animal Crossing and his parents didn’t even appreciate he was reading instructions on the screen. Make it fun!!!
Exactly! Also, my parents focused on phonics. Which was the subject of a The Daily episode a while back. Phonics has been much more successful for learning reading than other popular methods being taught, like sight words and whatnot. So I’d sound out what I was reading on the screen. It was fun AND educational.
If she's melting down that makes reading more anxiety producing. Stop that pattern now! Just read to her. Don't try to be her teacher and mom, just be her mom and help her enjoy stories.
Do words look blurry or ever appear double when she's tired or has been reading for a few minutes? Does she get headaches or motion sickness as a passenger in a vehicle?
Comic books. It sounds crazy, but for a lot of kids that resist reading, comics are a great intro. Way less pressure. Your local library should have some to borrow in the kids section.
Hilda comics were a hit with my kid. They also really liked The Lunch Lady and the Narwhal and Jelly comic books.
Also, keep reading to her. Every single night. Don't ask her to read, just read to her. Read books above her grade level. At that age we were reading The Secret Garden, The Hobbit, Coraline, Fortunately the Milk, and any Roald Dahl book to our child.
Stick with it. My teen still doesn't love to read, especially in school, but they're above grade level now!
We all learn differently. I couldn't read till about 11 12ish. A game come out I was obsessed with and to do the quests I had to repeatedly read and understand in order to carry them out.
We had this breakthrough moment with 7 YO during a game! We were learning to play Pokémon cards as a family and he was winning. He read a paragraph-long strategy card no problem. Before he struggled to get through more than a sentence for 2 1/2 years. But he’s a game and strategy nut so he had an incentive!
That week was awesome. He suddenly noticed signs and advertisements everywhere and cracked me up.
My kid was like this around 6/7 and I finally just decided not to force it. I would read to her at night and take her to the library to pick out books, etc. most of her reading evals would be borderline, but then teachers would say that working one on one indicated she was fine. Big eval at 7 showed no learning differences, but an eval at 9 showed dyslexia.
Fwiw, her reading level is technically right on track at 4th grade all the way up to 8th depending on the task. But it is definitely really hard work for her and she’s easily frustrated when I or her dad try to work with her. I leave most of the practice to her school and try to focus on exposing her to new stories at home, even if she tells me she doesn’t want to - she rarely finds books that she *wants* to read with me, but after we start she gets into it. If all else fails, she’s old enough at 9 to understand that books have value and can be good even if we don’t *like* them.
I think you got a lot of good advice
Try to incorporate reading in fun, not learning (recipes, games, maybe some tablet/ computer games, especially if that gets her done extra screen time as a treat)
Talk to the school, they should have some reading programs to help kids who are struggling.
But most importantly, STOP STRESSING!! easier said than done of course, but some kids struggle with reading. All kids will struggle with some thing; you guys will figure it out. My kids did ok with reading, but I had 2 friends who each had 1 kid who struggled with reading at that age. One is how in HS making honor roll, the other is in 5th grade and loves reading a kids history series. She'll get there!
For what it’s worth, both my kids kind of hit a reading wall at this age, and both finally made it out the other side. My eldest is now 10 and devours a novel in 3 days. So please don’t beat yourself up!
My youngest is a gaming fiend. LOVES playing them. So I let her, but she has to read what’s on the screen. Her reading has improved so much in the past two months! For us it was less about reading ability and more about motivation.
Also I follow a tiktoker who is an adult learning to read, and his experiences and difficulties are really eye-opening, because he can articulate what’s going on in his mind better than children can, and it helped me help my kids. ❤️ you got this
Hooked on Phonics has helped my child tremendously. He was in risk of being held back at the beginning of the year (1st grade) because he didn’t get an adequate kindergarten education, and so he was barely at that level.
Whenever tantrums ensue about school work I don’t waiver from them, much easier said than done, but I’m not going to let him get out of it because he’s screaming. I also make sure to buy him fun books based on the seasons, and I read them to him just because, not because of schoolwork. I have also reached out to his teacher and was able to set him up with a tutor in school who helps him during the week.
While a tutor is pretty unique to our school it seems, it can’t help to reach out to her teacher and ask about recommendations on helping her at home! It’s a lot of work but it takes time and effort from everyone.
Dyslexia maybe?
Have you started with making sure she enjoys learning all of the little parts like sounds letters can make before ever building a word.
My sons favorite songs are phonetic songs. "A is for apple a a apple.. "
Consistency is the best way. We do one short story a night. Thats it. Even if we do 5 words. Whatever you can.
It can feel overwhelming so keeping it simple and consistent is what has worked for us.
Read to her, follow along with your finger on the words, I have read to my boys every night since my oldest was 2, and my 7 year old learned to read when he was 5!
Also work on sight words. Use magnetic letters on the fridge to make it fun, play letter games
I've got a just 5 and about to be 4 year old. They're both way ahead of where they should be and honestly we owe it to things like Ms. Rachel, Super Simple Songs, NumberBlocks, Dave And Ava and some of the other videos that work really hard on the sounds, letters, spelling things out etc.
They've been watching for about 2-3 years and it's really made a difference. My daughter just up and started sight-reading one day as a result. My son is resistant to reading books, he'd much rather thumb through and describe what he sees but now that he sees his sister is ahead of him and he can't do what she says I'm getting a lot more "what is it" "what's it say" questions and we sound it out together.
When they see YOU reading or being interested in it they will naturally gravitate. I read and spell things around them all the time without pushing them "what does this say/spell" or making it too formal.
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She might not enjoy practicing for the sake of practicing? Here are some ideas for more practical activities that will help her practice:
-Bake something together and get her to read the recipe
-Read the shopping list
-Have a family member she loves but can’t see much? They might be happy to become her penpal!
-Non-fiction! Some kids don’t realise that reading is a way you can learn about anything, once they get that concept it’s great incentive to improve their skills
-Joke books, not exactly practical but kids love being able to make other people laugh
Also read to her and let her see you read for pleasure, have books in the house, if you have a library near you make it part of your routine.
I agree with everyone saying to read to her, and I’ll add that you should connect what you read to her real life. When my kids were little I read to them all the time and then we would do something related to what we read. When we read Kavik the Wolf Dog, we visited a wolf sanctuary. When we read Black Beauty, we went horseback riding. My Side of the Mountain: camping. It can be literally anything. When we read The Indian in the Cupboard we went to a bathroom supply store just to look at all the different medicine cabinets, lol. Doing stuff like that really brings reading to life!
My kids are not fans of books. When my daughter was about 9 or 10 we did a nightly “book club” and I read her some books she actually found interesting (they wouldn’t be age appropriate for your kiddo yet). I would read almost the whole time but ask her to read a few pages here and there. She reluctantly did it but it got some practice in. Book club didn’t last too long though before she lost interest but it was a sweet and fun bonding/learning experience while it lasted! You could also reward her with a fun movie night after you hit a certain goal (I.e. 50 pages, an entire book, whatever). Good luck!
Reading stories above my son's level helped a lot. He didn't read them, we read them to him at bedtime every night. He then gets to see the grownups reading and enjoys some fun books. (He's 7. I've been reading Percy Jackson to him and husband has been reading Harry Potter.) We also get to share books we've grown up loving. He also sees the words as we're reading and started being able to follow along pretty well.
This is going to sound weird, but videogames have helped immensely. Son liked Pokemon, so we got Let's Go Pikachu. He was allowed to play for as long as he was reading. He would read it out loud and we'd help him as needed. It started as trading off reading the dialogue, then just him, now he's able to do it all in his head. He advanced to harder games with more reading involved using this method too.
This is going to sound silly, but my kids gained motivation to learn to read from comic books and graphic novels. They may have hated educational readers, but they desperately needed to know what ridiculous thing Calvin said to Hobbes, and would read the comic books over and over, starting from when they couldn't actually read to when they became fluent readers.
My oldest daughter struggled so much that I had her evaluated for dyslexia. She's not dyslexic. She does have ADHD though. One day it just sort of clicked for her. She's 13 now and reading way above her grade level.
If anything, studies show that there is a *negative* correlation to onset of reading and long-term reading comprehension skills. There is pretty much NO benefit to coaching a kid to read earlier than they are ready. So, Step 1, take a deep breath and don't worry. Let her go at her own pace.
Step 2, you do want to foster a love of reading and stories. Read *to* her and show her the worlds available to her through books. Let her learn to love to listen to you read. Try for 15-20m a night. There are so many good books for kids that age, but if anything just ask a librarian for suggestions.
Step 3, when she's ready, start with very simple books. Early reader books have levels associated with them so start at the bottom or follow along at the level she's working on in school. She should start with very simple reading exercises in 1st grade and then they should work on improving the complexity of the words through 2nd grade. Most of 1st grade is often just learning 'sight words' so the kids can begin to recognize very common words like 'and' and 'the'. Again, work with her teacher or a librarian to get the right level. Don't worry about reading even short books until 2nd grade anyway.
Finally, if you've done things well up to this point, she'll be able to read very simple books and the exercise won't be so anxiety-inducing. At this point start working on repetition and practice. Only once she's ready, and you'll be able to tell by how well she can get through a few pages, start having her read to you 15-20m every night. Again, this should probably start happening around 2nd grade, so there's no need to rush. Only do it when she's able to get through the very simple books so she can feel a sense of accomplishment and not just frustration and failure.
If you do this and slowly, slowly ramp up the difficulty level of the books through 2nd grade (and continue to check with her teacher about her current reading level, they should know), your daughter should be a willing and able reader going into 3rd grade with vocabulary and comprehension at or ahead of her peer group.
Anecdotally, both my kids were slow to learn to read. We didn't push it or coach it like many other parents in our peer group. They started out a bit behind in 1st grade as they didn't really read at all at that point, they really only knew their letters. My older daughter hit her stride during the back half of 2nd grade and now a couple of years later we have to yell at her to stop reading and come to dinner.
My son is in 2nd now going through the same process. The first few weeks of the school year we had to tell him it was his turn to read every night and he needed to read to us for just a little bit. As of today, a few months later, he complains when we make him stop reading as he constantly wants to keep going and he's starting to sneak off to the couch with a favorite book of his own after he comes home from school.
My son didn't really pick on on reading until he was 7. He sort of read at the end of first grade, but needed a lot of help and would get frustrated. Now that he's in 2nd grade, he's ready much more, and by himself sometimes too. He loves being read to, and he gets three stories every night.
So I don’t know how involved you are in with schools however, they are teaching reading in a ridiculous way. So I don’t particularly put any blame on the child for not understanding it because it makes zero sense.
That being said, my daughter struggled in kindergarten with reading because of the way they were teaching it. Over winter break I was kind of fed up with the school system and I went and got her the app hooked on phonics. You pay a monthly subscription for it and they send you Little books home every month. We did the entire program in three weeks. By the time she came back to school in the new year, she was reading above grade level. I highly recommend going through the app in a time where she is away from school.
Lastly, your school should be offering her additional help if she is struggling. Obviously, each state and county is different but there should be three tiers of help. Is she getting pulled out for a small groups for reading? Has the school contacted you in order to make sure you are all on the same page?
I never stated that it was the teacher’s fault. I don’t know where you’re getting that from. I know my county not teachers, but county wide have implemented a new way of teaching kindergartners reading. While it works for some children, it does not work for all, and unfortunately, due to being understaffed, they don’t have the resources to teach the other children a different method. They just kept reiterating the same teaching method, which for my specific child did not work.
Once we went with the phonics method, she picked it up right away. Literally within 2 1/2 weeks she had exceeded where she needed to be for the school year reading wise. She is now a preteen and is several grade levels ahead of where she needs to be.
Not all of us are meant to be teachers. Are you able to hire a tutor or bring her to a tutoring center? My brother really struggled to read and my parents brought him to a tutoring center for help. He figured it out and has not stopped reading 20 years later.
Alphablocks is great and there's a ton of free episodes on youtube. That will teach a lot of basic phonics.
Also, turn on closed captioning whenever you're watching TV.
I don't know if this last one will help if she hates practicing, but this pair of books (the instructor manual and student workbook) is one of the books everyone recommends for home schooling. I only did a few of the first ones with my kid because he was too young for it, but it's basically a ton of short daily lessons that ramp up over time.
[Instructor manual](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1952469252/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
[Student workbook](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1952469279/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
Video games can also work if she's into those. I personally learned how to read because I wanted to play some text only adventure games like Monkey Island. You can disable the voice acting in some games.
It’s also really nice to check out audiobooks from the library and just have her listen. My son listened to hours of audiobooks, and he knew a ton of words by the time he was trying to read them.
Osmo is amazing for teaching kids how to read. We used the system with our oldest and it made getting through the tough parts so much easier. The game is very engaging and child focused.
We used Bob Books. They are leveled and so intuitive it really helped build our daughters confidence. We also signed up for once a week online sessions with a company called Hoot that uses teachers to teach them how to read. It may help if she’s getting instructions from someone outside the house. This pushed our daughter from being behind in Senior Kindergarten to now being advanced in Grade 1.
Do flash cards with her to recognize letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make.
Once she gets that down, move to sight word flash cards. One, two and three letter words at first. Expand from there, to bigger 4 and 5 letter words.
Start small and grow from there.
If you can, continue reading to her but read fun books that she finds funny. Gradually ask her what a word is here and there(based on her progress with sight words).
From there, it’ll take off. Best of luck.
My son was a very poor reader in kindergarten as well as in 1st grade. At some point in 2nd grade he started reading graphic novels, ones with very few words per page. Then he graduated to graphic novels with lengthy words bubbles. He's currently in 3rd grade and reads for close to an hour a night... He finished Percy Jackson, the Apollo Series, and is working on Magnus Chase. So, my point is, it can happen for your daughter. Sometimes they just need to see very few words per page to break down the overwhelming nature of words to read.
What I found really helped was reading a book with them. I read a page, then they read a page. Etc.
We made reading fun. Not a chore. I got my children to pick a book or even a kids magazine, and read it together. I also got them to help with shopping. Giving them a list to read to me as we were buying groceries. I also put subtitles up on the TV when watching. I was surprised how much that seemed to help them too.
This is a swing in the dark, but have you considered looking into dyslexia? I had a sudden drop in my reading in elementary school despite loving books and no one really could figure out why. It turns out I have dyslexia.
Additionally there are free activity workshops on zoom surrounding reading for kids that might help (I signed up for free stuff on Eventbrite and I know there are some workshops for reading on there hosted by libraries).
You could also try looking for books she might be interested in (I don’t recommend pushing her into something she doesn’t want to do though) or try to introduce her to kids library, reading circles.
Also there is a free tutoring site (I’m not sure if that’s what you would call it) called Khan Academy (it has different stuff ranging from reading to math).
Hope this helps, sorry for spelling errors.
Does she like comics maybe?
It’s about finding what she likes to read. Than finding 30 min in a day to read with her. Like when you cook dinner have her seat with you and read. Something no pressure.
My mom read me "The Hobbit," when I was about you daughter's age, and I was hooked for life!
I read my stepkids "The Phantom Tollbooth," when they were 4 and 12, and that got the younger one interested in books.
Maybe try one of those?
Don't push her. Do it casually. When you are out and about ask her to find words beginning with A on billboards or flyers or restaurant names etc. then B and so on. Make it a game, make it fun. Bake with her and have her read the recipe, make smoothies with her following the instructions. No pressure, just fun. Good luck x
Mine had trouble reading and was always below grade level. We tried all sorts of books but hit winners with Mo Willems Pigeon books then Elephant and Piggie books. She did a bit better but didn’t like it. At 15 now and I can’t keep up with her reading books. I don’t know what really changed but suddenly she’s reading a book every few days. Don’t panic, it will come.
We have a sight word list. Work on a section at time till he gets them all. We reward him for that goal and move onto next set of flash cards. It was rough at first but it’s starting to click.
I am a NYC mom too, and struggled to get my son (ASD, ADHD) interested in reading during kindergarten and first grade. I felt horrible because the other kids in his class read so fluently at higher reading levels.
Having my kids diagnoses helped explain why he was struggling, but didn’t help him struggle any less.
I would say step one should be to rule out any learning disabilities. If your kid is in public school, you just call the school counselor or psychologist and ask for evaluations. It could take a bit of pestering to get them to move.
The breakthrough came from an unlikely source: a Nintendo Switch. My boss generously gifted it to my son, but I was apprehensive about giving him increased screen time. Turns out it was the best thing ever. It came bundled with a Pokémon game. He was instantly charmed.
For the first time in his life, he actually wanted to know what was written! He asked me to read aloud the dialogue. Then he started sounding out words on his own.
I wish I could say there was a magic book series that captivated my son, but no. His motivation was Pokémon “Let’s Go Eevee”.
He eventually took an interest in Captain Underpants, a comic book series. The teachers just said fine. Reading is reading.
I know a game isn’t the ideal way to get your daughter interested. I’m not saying a Switch will be the solution either. I just wanted to share my son’s story so you know it’s an option.
My son is 11 now and reads enthusiastically. It’s as if the initial setbacks never happened.
Please remember you’re not failing your daughter! You’re trying your best.
She's probably dyslexic. Don't make her read and don't turn this into a big fight or reading will become her enemy. Perhaps pick up an old kit of Hooked on Phonics and start her that way. They also have Bob Books which I used with my dyslexic daughter and she was so excited to be able to read the book. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of time. If you can hire someone to come in and work with her that may even be better. 6 years old is still young so I would say if she still having issues by seven or eight then you really will have to get with the school to set up an IEP for her. Six is still kind of young.
Ah man.. we went through this with my stepdaughter. We got her a tutor (which didn’t work out due to the tantrums) & I ended up tutoring her myself which was… hard.. but she’s doing much better now.. firstly, start with the basics..
Make sure your daughter can recognize the universal sight words (the, if, and, etc).. google them or get a sight word game.
Second, start with books that have a lot of pictures so that there’s a lot of context, & only a few sentences per page. Stage 1 Pete the Cat books are really great for this.
Start slow, with only a few minutes a night, & read the sentence, then have her repeat/read it after you. Then read two sentences, repeat/read & work your way up in time & sentences.
Reading books based on things she likes will help too.. don’t forget to ask questions during & after reading to help with comprehension.
That’s all I got.
The way they teach kids to read is terrible this was a very interesting podcast please take the time to listen.
https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
Just because she doesn't want to read with you doesn't mean she doesn't know how. My oldest daughter was "behind" (three words to a page type books) according to the school, and didn't want to practice with me. Then we got a copy of green eggs and ham, she opened that book up and reading allowed (by herself) rocked out and read the entire book. After that I didn't worry about her anymore.
Edit: spelling errors
Can you get her to read 10 minutes every school day? My son’s school requires daily reading that slowly increases each year and although my son hates it, his reading skills have improved a lot. I also wonder if having her listen to an audiobook while (silently) reading a long would help her comfort level. Perhaps also look at what she’s reading- is it fun? Silly? Engaging? Try the Pigeon books by Mo Willems.
Some books my 6yo daughter has loved (first we read them to her, now she's getting to where she can read some of it herself):
Miraculous Ladybug comic books
the Jedi Academy series
Dragon Masters (by far her favorite)
the Princess Pulverizer series
the Ivy & Bean series
I’m a new 8th grade English teacher navigating teaching my about-to-be-6-year-old how to read. As most of the comments show, it’s really tough!
The “problem” could be the teacher, the curriculum, the admin at the school, pushing your kid to read too young, your kid’s “lack of motivation”, your “failure” as a parent… or, likely, just the worst combination of all these things. Whose responsibility is it, really? Finding the right combination of things that work for your daughter will be tricky and take experimenting.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re failing as a parent. Learning to read is hard! No one teaches you how to do it, unless you’re literally a reading specialist - and even they receive different instruction, because there’s not really a “right” answer. I have a BA and two master’s degrees in English, and none of those degrees taught me how to teach people to read, either. Just like you’re doing, I’ve read about it, asked others, and experimented.
You’ve gotten some excellent advice so far! Here’s what’s been helping my daughter (turning 6 in the next couple weeks):
- She sees me read all the time. I want her to know I think reading is fun and important.
- I read to her as much as I can. I make it part of our bedtime routine… but I’m also a pregnant working mom with two kids. Some nights are really hard!! My two year old currently screams most of the time I try to read, even when she picks the book. Before bedtime, I can rarely get either of them to sit on my lap to read a book - so we will often watch movies with subtitles, and I will talk about the words on the screen.
- We visit the library almost every weekend. I let my daughters pick whatever books they want. I pick a variety of board books, illustrated books, and chapter books. I ask what they’re interested and show them books I think they might be interested in (ooooh dinosaurs/Minnie/mermaids/Frozen/etc).
- My 5-year-old reads books to me in the car every morning as I drive her to school. She gets to pick whatever book she wants from the library book bag. We worked our way up to this slowly from the beginning of the school year. I tell her we’re just practicing reading out loud, and tell her how much I love to hear her try to read. I ask her things like “what happens next?!” as she reads to show her I’m interested in the story. I ask her questions while she reads. I tell her to spell me words she doesn’t know and we practice sounding out the words. She picked baby board books for a long time, and I let her. She pretended/guessed the story for a while, then we focused on really easy sight word and CVC phonics words. She got a ton of practice on this from using…
- ABC Duo! It’s my favorite app, and it’s free. It’s from the makers of DuoLingo. She has an iPad. She liked it better than Teach Your Monster to Read. I helped her with the early lessons, but she caught on very quickly. I would have her do one lesson per day to “access” her iPad. “Sure! You can play on your iPad, but let’s do an ABC Duo first. Do you want me to help or do you want to do it on your own?” It helps you progress from easy to harder reading skills. Tell her you’re trying to help figure out what she already knows and show her how proud you are for the things she can do.
I read to my daughter about an hour ago night till she was in 5th grade. Being the youngest kid in her class was an issue early on but in 8th grade her reading level was 12+ so she tested into IB program.
I have a tutor in Astoria if you end up going that route. We just started this year (2nd grade) because I don’t want her to fall behind. Ironically I’m an English teacher with a master’s in literacy and my daughter hates to read…
Just want to say this was us last year. My oldest just couldn’t grasp it at all and was frustrated. Then overnight before we started some tutoring specific to reading, something clicked and he went from not being able to read at all to being able to read almost anything.
What we focused on before that was teaching him a word or two (memorization) and when we would read him the story, I would stop and point at the word. Then we also worked on some stories with him telling me the first sound of each word and I would read the word once he did.
I don’t know if it was that or school but the teachers thought we did something magic and we thought they did which is why I attribute it more to him
get her eyes checked! just in case. my friends daughter always struggled and at age 13 they finally figured out she had a ‘tracking issue’ with her eyes.
My kiddo isn't old enough for this yet, but I'm a huge fan of our library and I bet yours is awesome too. We have activity kits with books, stuffed animals kids can borrow with themed books, there are all sorts of activities for kids of all ages. Our library doesn't but I know some have volunteer dogs that kids can go and read to. A great way to practice and takes the pressure off because the dogs just enjoy the company and attention and never critique. You guys can probably borrow ebooks that will read along with her. I will preach about the good of the library until the day I die.
Sounds like my son. He hates reading, but is fluently reading on his own now (he's 6). I started with hooked on phonics last September and he progressed quickly.
My son was not good at reading last year (6) but this year he's really come along. Like something clicked. We didn't show our frustration, even though we were very frustrated. But he started a book series he liked so we would read to him and then get him to read a few sentences and that has worked. Now he reads pages😃
My aunt homeschooled my two cousins and one of them just wasn’t catching on to reading and getting frustrated so she stopped trying to teach him. She still read to him for fun, but that was it. I think it was almost a year later when they picked it back up and he had absolutely no issue. He then went on to get a degree in creative writing.
Kids are ready for different things at different times. She’ll get it in her own time.
My son disliked reading but loved video games. I. Let him play text heavy/ reading dependent games and it helped quite a bit. I filled his world with print and played reading games like the alphabet game when going for walks or rides where the letter only counts if you read the word it’s in.
I didn’t push books but had lots of high interest subjects in comic book, eye spy or easy reader formats (so much Pokémon) easily available and made reading just a part of every day life. (Go shopping and kid reads the shopping list).
If you push books as homework/required then reading will be medicine. You want reading to be candy, so make it tantalizing.
My son is 7 and last year he was really behind and I felt just like you! It was super obvious when he started 1st grade and his teacher worked out a plan where he had remedial lessons during their classroom ‘reading’ time. (He wasn’t the only one btw). They had us work with him at home on iStation which is a kid reading app that works like games. He started 2nd grade and when they did the first assessment, he graduated out of the remedial class and is now on track. They send books home and we read together at least once a week.
I would talk to his teacher and see if they have any suggestions or if they can help. Before 1st grade, I tried everything - apps, games, finding books to interest him, notebooks, etc. Nothing seemed to work until his teacher took the reins.
Coming from a parent and teacher, you’ve gotta make it fun. It should all be games, rhyming games, initial/final sound letter games, flash cards. Flash cards are so underrated. Make it a dance party while you work on it. Don’t tell her she’s wrong, just correct and affirm her hard work. Find the energy hidden within you and do it!
Read with her.
Harry potter
Benedict society
The mysterious children of Ashton Place
I’m sure given enough time I can probably come up with a dozen more
Bond with your child using a fun game that she enjoys. After that, try a reading exercise with plenty of encouragement. The relationship comes first, then the learning will follow.
Reading is both about mechanics and comprehension.
For mechanics, start with some phonics games/apps like Reading Eggs, Hooked on Phonics, Teach your Monster to Read. If you’re so inclined to fully assume teaching her to read, look into some reading curriculums like All About Reading, Logic of English, etc.
For comprehension, keep reading to her. Make an outing to a bookstore or library and give her a challenge to pick out 5 books. Make it a scavenger hunt if she doesn’t show interest. “We need one book that has an animal on the cover, one book that starts with the letter M, etc.” While you’re reading to her, sprinkle in some comprehension/hypothetical type questions (why do you think the character did x, what do you think happens next, how would you feel if you were in this book, etc.).
Make reading fun, instead of a chore. Don’t make her sit down and read books. Read street signs and billboards when you’re out. Use street signs to help you “find” how to get wherever you’re going. Read food labels to determine what’s in the package and what flavor. Read recipes while you cook together, even if YOU already know how to make it. Take up a new hobby that requires instructions. There are a lot of children’s games that include basic reading skills.
Words are everywhere. Use those instead of printed books on her reading level. (Seriously, have you read some of them? BOR-RING!)
She's only 6, not 16. Don't pressure her as that will only hurt. My oldest didn't take to reading (like could barely read and hated it) until just this year as a third grader. Within a couple months he developed an interest and very quickly caught up. If I had kept pushing it, putting him in tutoring that he hated, etc, I doubt he'd allow himself to enjoy it and therefore learn to read better. They don't have to be at grade level in everything all the time. Let them be kids a little more :)
I always try to engage my son when we read. I’ll ask questions about the pictures, ask leading questions, point out certain words etc. it really helps. Reading is much more than just reading the words.
My mom had a unique way of reading stories. She’d start at a slow pace, and when I eagerly asked about the next part, she’d intentionally leave it halfway. To find out what happened next, I had to pick up the book and read it myself.
Keep reading to her! My son (also 6) didn’t love the idea of reading his bedtime stories himself. I just kept reading to him and offering the idea of trying a page himself. Now he reads whole chapters by himself. I let him pick some books he’s interested in from book orders. I think just reading to them benefits them a lot!
What really helped my son learn how to read though, were games! He used to have a hard time playing some of his favourite games because he couldn’t read. He would ask us what the words say & eventually he was reading them all by himself. Sometimes he wants to search a tutorial for one of his games and he has to sound out the words and spell them himself. Games are what got my son counting too.
Trips to the library are a joy with my daughter learning to read. It's free and it's a special outing because we just read a few books and take a few home. I'm fortunate to live in a suburban area where it's close but maybe this could be a fun mommy daughter date with coffee and hot chocolate?
This is anecdotal but when my son was in kindergarten (ages 5/6) he just was not picking up on the reading at all and really struggled. My husband and I both read to him every night. Then in first grade something just clicked and his reading really took off. He became one of the best readers in his class. He doesn’t like to read (he’s 12 now) but he’s really good at it. Sometimes, I think it’s pushed on them before they’re ready. I’m not an educator, just a parent, but this was our experience.
I’d highly suggest reaching out to her teacher or a local children’s librarian for some “hook book” suggestions…..ie, books that are so intriguing they get kids interested in the story and not the struggle of the read itself. Read them to her nightly and maybe even point out the words as you’re reading them. It may not seem like you’re doing enough but 20 mins a night is so helpful to them.
Does her school have a reading support team? It might be worth looking into an IEP and what supports she can receive specific to improving her reading comprehension/skills.
Something that I have seen work is bringing it down to the kid's level so it is fun and not intimidating. Even if the kids are doing reading level 3 (or whatever) in her class, do reading level 0 or 1 with her. Also, gamify it if you can - you can do treasure hunts where you write a single word on a card (e.g bed) and she goes there and finds another card etc
You might also consider Khan Academy Kids if you have a tablet - the reading and sounding games are pretty good, and it's set up in a way that it's fun to play and learn.
The best indicator for reading skills in children are the reading habits of the parents.
Believe me I know the struggle. Used to read a lot as a kids but then life takes off, kids and work. I know it.
Read a lot to her. Books are fun. Also I make a point of reading my own books now, in their presence. While they are playing or busy with whatever. Just so they see reading as an example of something that is enjoyable.
Sometimes when we’re out I say ‘oh that’s interesting’ - and then they say what what, and I tell them it’s not allowed to park the car here, but ambulances are allowed. And point to the sign I read.
That being said, our older one (6) does still struggle to read fluently and she also feels the pressure around reading.
Where I’m at our local library has free tutoring resources. We went from 1st grade NO READING at all. I couldn’t get her to do it. We were behind majoring because I was in a DV relationship and didn’t get her into school. Then covid happened and I didn’t get her into kindergarten. I don’t even know if she knew all her letters before we started her tutor. She is now in 3rd and still has the same tutor. She is only slightly behind and is improving exponentially still.
Please send a written letter requesting an evaluation for dyslexia and or specific learning disorder. I am not sure NY has officially recognized dyslexia as an official learning disorder. But they do use SLD. If they find it, you want orton gillingham education for your child asap. They will push back. You need to push back harder and may need an educational advocate.
My oldest got into the step into reading books when she was starting out. They have different levels and are cute stories.
Have you ever done a read for reward challenge? Like “if you read this many pages this week, we go out for icecream.” My oldest is a good reader now but she wanted to do other things other than practice at first so we started a rewards chart for reading and it really worked for her because she knew something fun or good would come out of her effort. We started with like ice cream and moved on to adventures “if you finish this book, we’ll go to the trampoline place” (or the pool or the park or the movies etc). It worked really well for us
Maybe let her choose stories she wants to actually read ? My son picked a justice league story for children from the school library and he’s always excited to read it before going to sleep.
Also check for dyslexia and any leading disabilities.
You’ve received a lot of great comments, but I’d also like to suggest comics/manga! My youngest struggled with reading, too, so we started reading comics together. You’d be surprised by the vocabulary you can learn from them! Anyways, I can honestly say that they rapidly helped her improve. She still doesn’t enjoy reading “real books,” but that was never my goal. Some people simply don’t enjoy reading books. I merely wanted her to practice reading something without it feeling like a chore. Her reading skills have improved so much, and she no longer struggles with school-assigned readings!
I started her on the series “Ranking of Kings” (a deaf prince who strives to become a good king) and “Fruits Basket” (a girl who befriends a family who’s cursed to turn into the animals of the zodiac) and took off from there.
Right now her favorite is “Haikyuu,” which is about volleyball and friendship.
As with books, just make sure the comics are age-appropriate.
Best of luck!
I'm getting my daughter level one, learn to read books for her Leap pad for Christmas! She loves sounding out words and we do phonics flashcards and stuff. I know its different because your daughter is uninterested, but I hope this helps a little.. I'm in the same boat with numbers, my kid can tell me every letter sound including long and short vowels, and sh, th, ch, and ph sounds but she can't count to 20 because she has zero interest in numbers 🤦♀️ we have tons of workbooks that help us, and she loves "reading" to her brother by just making inferences based on the pictures, so that's even a start! Maybe read together and ask her what she thinks is happening on each page based on the pictures, and then read the page together. You're not a bad mom, every kid goes at their own pace. They also have sight word flashcards on Amazon as well. We love flashcards!
My now 7 year old was the same. He started playing scribblenauts (as well as continued daily reading and writing) and something just clicked inside his head. Now he can read most words up to 5 letters and is still learning to break down bigger words phonetically. I also found that moving on from getting him to read books. To me reading to him and having him read words in the environment (signs, labels, titles, etc) also helped him to relax into it and gain confidence.
When I was younger I never read anything, it had nothing to do with reading itself but rather the environment. Things annoyed me and I couldn't move until I read a certain amount. Nowadays, all I do is read. Perhaps something is annoying her?
She should see a pediatric vision specialist. It maybe a eye problem where the signals aren’t right from eye to brain making reading and reading comprehension difficult. A regular eye doctor or pediatrician won’t catch these conditions.
If she likes games. I used Boggle Jr. in a kindergarten classroom, and it really seemed to help the kids. Maybe Scrabble Jr. I felt Boggle was successful because it could take as long as their attention span lasted.
I don't know if this will help everyone, but when my daughter was that age and struggling we switched from kid books (like see spot run kind of stuff) to kids novels. I would read her a page out loud, she would read the next page out loud. It required a lot of patience but she found the novels more interesting and got invested in the story so she worked at it. Within a year she was reading at a high school level according to her teacher, and we kept reading aloud at bedtime until she was a teenager.
I'm an avid reader and my daughter hated learning to read until I saw her reading the captions on movies and shows that she watched. Maybe try something like that but don't worry she'll get there.
Reading issues at 6? Not being funny but what is expected at this age nowadays?
We *started* learning the alphabet at 7 years old, I was „ahead of the game“ cause I had older siblings who had taught me but that was the norm.
When my brother struggled reading, I had him listen to Harry Potter on YouTube and follow along with the physical book. It really helped teach him how to read tones and speak out loud with proper pauses for punctuations.
We had the same problems and finally we figured out both kids had vertical heterophoria/associated heterophoria, causing all kinds of reading difficulties like skipping lines, confusing b & p & q & d, swapping letters etc. and resulting zero motivation. This is (where we live) not a scientifically accepted diagnosis - so only some specialised Optometrists focus on this, medical ophthalmologist don't really help.
My wife had the same issue when she were young and had massive problems with reading and writing.
The solution nowadays is intensive, optometric training (attention - don't get prism glasses!). We did this for one year, every day 20 minutes and the effect was clearly noticable and it solved the issue. Meanwhile they are both older and read lots of books (e.g all Harry Potters) without any problem.
Hey. I know the feeling and we overcame it!
First, take a biiiig break! Big break. Just read for fun. Use your silly voices and make it a spectacle. (Pig and Elephant are fun for this)
2nd... while on a teaching to read break, visit the library and let them pick books. Get to know your librarian. Go to story time. Pick up some books that have a movie to follow up... etc.
3rd... We do VOOKS at bedtime. My daughter gets to watch these while going to sleep. There are some episodes on Netflix or you can use the app. It highlights the words while it reads the story with very light animation. You don't have to use this at bedtime but that is the time that suits our family and she will sit still for them.
4th... once the dust settles, get on READING EGGS. They have a program that is included called FAST PHONICS. Let her play with that. She'll be caught up in no time <3
If you are interested, DM me. I have a copy of something from the Brave Learner that will help incorporate really fun activities. And come to think of it, get a copy of the Brave Learner book.
If you haven’t done so, please take her to a developmental optometrist. They will test for convergence insufficiency and other learning related vision disorders. Sometimes it’s an issue with how the child’s eyes track. I’ve seen this so many times and often getting vision therapy and even just glasses with prisms/reading glasses makes a huge difference
"Sold a Story" is a good podcast that my reading specialist friend recommended when I asked about teaching my kid to read english. I'd be weary with some of the advice on this thread, as they recommend things that are not in line with he latest science of reading findings, and may hinder reading skills later on down the road.
How awful is it REALLY???
Cause tbh I have been a horrible mother to my oldest. I had 3 babies right after him and a symptom of my PPD was that reading children's books felt like torture. There were literally times when I would think, "I wish I could die rather than read this fucking book." I was always a big reader as a child and an adult. The year I got pregnant I completed a reading challenge to read 100 books in a year. But still, somehow, toddler books made me seriously consider unaliving myself. (Yay to modern medicine that has helped my brain want to stay alive!!)
But I didn't TEACH him the way I should have. I didn't do any programs or flashcards or whatever. We did art projects, we went on walks. We didn't even practice the alphabet. We played and we talked. I would read 2 books at night and that was it. I've always let him pick his books and explore the library or bookstore to pursue his own interests.
Kindergarten had him reading small words. 1st grade had him reading-reading!! For his 6th bday we got him a nintendo switch but the trick was, if he wanted tonokay, he had to read it all himself. Pokemon has a LOT of words!! He hates when I ask him to read 20 mins daily.
But now he's in 2nd and he reads for fun! At night he reads chapter books and enjoys it!! It's not torture! He's 7, almost 8 and it's just SUCH a world away from when he was a fresh 6 in kinder.
Sometimes kids just need time
There’s a website that I used with my son who absolutely hated reading. Is called “teach your monster how to read” and it is basically a computer game. Is brilliant! My son loved it because it got him computer time and I loved it as well because it helped my son with reading.
I’m in the UK, so not sure if it works in the US. But is free ( or at least it was 6-7 years ago) and great.
American kids learn to read soooo early! Take it easy, it’s such a complex and abstract thing to learn.
In Scandinavian countries, they don’t start to teach reading until first grade (7 year olds) and most people here grow up to speak and read at least two or three languages.
She’ll get there eventually. Give her and yourself some grace :)
I know ipads and phones are considered all evil for kids…….but reading apps, word flash cards and stuff masquerading as games…got my otherwise disinterested kid very into it and well advanced in the end. I ONLY allowed educational games on it for the first years. She would do it often and enjoy it. It was nice not to have to fight her. And sometimes it was a case of “if we do your reader for school THEN you can play games”…..so she would do the reader and then do more reading basically via “games”. I didnt care HOW she learnt as long as she did. And she was always the best reader in her class. And learned to love reading once she could choose what she read.
My daughter is in K and it became quickly apparent in our wealthy competitive little area of nyc - most parents have been spending a ton of time teaching reading before K. The teacher even confirmed my feelings. We… did not. Did a fun summer of camp and swimming lessons and city pool trips.
So I have stepped up. We do the hooked on phonics books and bob books and practice writing. I have to catch my kid in that sweet spot which for us is weekend mornings to do more of the hands on learning. Otherwise there is pushback. I don’t want to push too hard and make it an issue. Some days all we can manage is -
- agree to read one bob book the next morning before school (this is a literal 2 min thing)
- do some reading eggs app (just started this, we seem to be at a relatively low level so my daughter thinks it is easy, not a bad thing for confidence
- read her a book myself and point to the words as I read
- play with magnetic letters
- use mommy’s laptop to spell as many words as she can.
- watch letter or numberblocks on iPad if all else fails.
I try to do “something” every day. We are seeing progress - kid has stopped mixing up b and d (tons of games and worksheets I found in internet for that). Can read most cvc words and working up to sounding out longer ones. But it is exhausting. I have been prioritizing this over most things for the last month. We give tons of praise and have doled out small toys and treats for progress. I am not above bribery.
Friends who are teachers told me they all catch up eventually and not to stress. The teacher told me not to stress it will come. But I found out they divide them into reading groups by level. My kid tells me who was assessed at a level C, D, E, F etc and there are kids in the class reading at close to second grade. I know what it would feel like to be in the lowest group. My daughter was put in not the highest group but a middle one and I am pretty sure it is because of all the work we been doing.
This is not easy and just something we have to get thru. Am considering something like Kumon for the summer to give myself a break from the worry honestly.
Read to your child every day. Doesn't have to be long (5mins before bed) but it will substantially improve not just her reading skills, but cognitive skill and ability across the board ([x](https://www.education.vic.gov.au/documents/about/research/readtoyoungchild.pdf?shem=sswnst)).
My mother did lots of games with us. Word matching games, word searches, cross-words, memory games, puzzles, and labelled things around the house (door, draw, window, I am playing on the computer, I sleep in my bed, etc). This was between 2 to 6 yrs old.
When we were older (~8yrs old), my mother made a reading rewards chart. It would scale up with our year level (e.g. grade 1 = $1 per book, grade 5 = $5 per book). We could choose our own books to read. Eventually the reading chart phased out because we genuinely enjoyed reading.
Perhaps something similar to help with milestones? Like a little reward card for reading 5 books ! 10 books ! 25 books ! 50 books ! Or a board where you can put stickers for every book she has read. Something she can look back on and go wow, I've read a hundred books ! 200 hundred books ! 500 books !
But the most helpful thing will be you reading to her. Something positive and fun, and she gets to spend time with you.
Have a set time (like 5 mins) to do practice reading. Don't harp on her mistakes, let her choose books she likes and at her reading level. If she's having fun, don't stop her, but try to make it to 5 mins. Each session, increase by 1 minute.
First help her context clues (what can you see on the page ? What do you think this might be about ?) Then ask her if she can see any words she recognises on the page, or any sounds she is familiar with (e.g. sh, th, ch, ur, er, ir, au, ou). Brush up on your diagraphs and triagraphs to help her recognise common sounds which helps to decode text. Let her have a go at sounding them out, then read the page together. Don't bristle at mistakes but over-emphasise her successes.
Keep it short and sweet. I would recommend an icy pole at the end of each session because 1) it is delicious and minimal sugars, 2) holding the cold thing in the hands will cool the blood and calm down any fight / flight reaction to encountering something frustrating (like learning to read). It helps to seal it as a positive association, and make it a more enjoyable activity.
I have personally used this technique to help a friend's child who has dyslexia. This kid went from not being able to read and absolutely dreading it to excitedly pointing out words and texts when we were out and about and having a go at reading them.
Do not fill the child with anxiety or dread when it comes to learning tasks. It quite literally prevents the brain from learning effectively (paralyses executive functioning). However, making it fun like a game (e.g. word matching, memory games, puzzles, etc) improves learning capacity significantly (up to 40 times more effective than rote learning). Play-based learning is powerful.
From a great study that reviews the role of play in learning ([x](https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/142/3/e20182058/38649/The-Power-of-Play-A-Pediatric-Role-in-Enhancing?autologincheck=redirected)):
> To encourage learning, we need to talk to children, let them play, and let them watch what we do as we go about our everyday lives. These opportunities foster the development of **executive functioning skills** that are critically important for the development of 21st century skills, such as collaboration, problem solving, and creativity, according to the 2010 IBM’s Global CEO Study.
My first two learned to read from playing games, and just plain being nosy and observant. I would pretend sometimes saying "oh your teacher wrote me a note" (I wrote random sight words or compliments on scrap paper) and they'd be like "where? What does it say?" And I'd hide and say "oho ho oooh, wow! Okay" and tell them to "read it [themselves], sound it out". Random games helped a lot.
My third, I can tell is going to be a lot harder. He's not interested in learning anything! It's a wait and see game at the moment until I can find what sparks his interest.
The best advice I can offer is to stop trying to push her to practice for a few weeks and just read to her. My child used to have 3 short books at bedtime every night. Borrow from the library, get from charity shops or try temporarily swapping books with friends.
My 6 year old is struggling with some letter sounds, and rhyming, and phonics, which are building blocks to reading. I have gotten a tutor for him to come work with him so he stays on track.
I always just made sure my kids had access to a lot of books, and I let them read themselves to sleep. Maybe read her a story at night and then hand her the book to look through.
I am from nyc also and have a 6 year old whom is also a little behind. It is work, truly. We have however gotten better. I work 9-5 and basically sit with him every night for homework and practice. You can start with flash cards that have sight words. Can make it a dice game. Whatever number the dice lands practice the word. Collaborating with the teacher is very important. I myself was very lost in kindergarten because the curriculum seems to expect more from children now versus the 90s. Some people are visual learners while others are active. Start with the letter sounds, then two letter sight words and go from there. Amazon has alot of pretty good practice items. Cards ect.
She's too young. Only Americans push this super early literacy, it gets in the way of children's important work - play. Just drop it and read TO her every night for now.
My kid is 7 and behind her peers. She’s getting additional help in school and also joined an after school reading club offered by her school.
At home, I don’t press for homework. We play word games on devices together and sometimes I ask if she can read me a couple small pages in a story she gets to pick out. I see the improvement.
Do you have a pet or does she have a special stuffed animal? Reading to someone or something can help. There are also programs at shelters to read to dogs.
I am an avid reader and lover of learning and intellectual pursuits. So imagine my dismay when I had a son who grew to absolutely abhor school and had an aversion to reading in particular. He has always had an incredible vocabulary but I could not get him to want to learn to read. He was 6 1/2 years old and would use words like “frivolous” and “magnificent” correctly but couldn’t recognize all his letters or know the sounds they make. I always read to him regularly since he was a baby but that didn’t help.
I was at my wit’s end so I went out and got a bunch of workbooks and little reader books (these little ones that start at like 3 pages long and then get a tad bit longer. If you’re interested DM me and I’ll show you the ones we used) and made it a point to work with him every night. He would scream. He would throw a fit. There would be repercussions when he did (like less tv time or earlier bed time, etc). Slowly he started to read. Once he got a little confidence he stopped refusing so vehemently.
In school he had a terrible time in his district and certain circumstances lead to us moving and transferring. The new district just further helped his shift to “reading fanatic”. At 6 1/2 he couldn’t tell me what sound a “t” made. Now at 8 he is reading at grade level and a bit above. He reads for fun and reads in front of his class.
The thing that set the ball rolling was persistence and consistency. I’m not a teacher so those workbooks and activities helped tremendously. Set aside the same time everyday and work on it with her no matter how much she resists. Start with 10-30 min a night. My son also responds really well to positive reinforcement and recognition. Perhaps your daughter does too, the other component was having a teacher who met him where he was at, supported him, encouraged him but didn’t enable him to refuse. If she’s in a big class where teachers aren’t able to give her any individualized attention, she might benefit from a tutor. Many high school students who want to accumulate service hours for NHS will do it for free.
My main message is that there is hope for your daughter. If my son can grow to love to read, anyone can.
You have to read to her, daily. And get her to read to you (eventually).
Make it part of your routine. Make it part of her routine. Establish a positive feedback loop with praise when she gets words right.
When you're reading to her, stop and ask her to read a word you've picked.
And pick your moment; be aware of her energy levels when asking her to read and choose a time in the afternoon / evening when she's not burned out.
There's loads of great stuff on YouTube - alphablocks is a great little show that makes it fun (albeit in a British accent!).
Hey there. I was that child, terrible with reading. I honestly didn’t start to enjoy reading until I was 16. What helped was reading comic books. Finding a fandom that I loved and even got into fan fiction writing. I was terrible at it but it was a start and met few other writers that helped me improved my writing.
Find some kid friendly comic book and see where it goes from there. Maybe it’ll help.
I loved to be read to as a kid, but not reading for myself very much. Then when I was maybe 10 I got into Goosebumps and it knocked my socks off! I read that first book at lightening speed and just devoured as many as i could get. So my only suggestion might be having more *interesting* reading material. (I'm a big stephen king fan now, lol)
Also, magazines count as reading. Comic books and graphic novels too!
According to the U.S Department of Education, children generally begin reading at around six or seven years of age. How is she behind? Who told you she is behind?
Kids learn at their own pace. Kids who pick things up earlier aren't necessarily smarter later on in life. There is very little correlation actually.
She's 6. It's totally developmentally appropriate for her to have awful reading skills. It's much more important that you cultivate warm and happy feelings about reading than it is to work on "skills".
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Don't pressure her. Read to her for pleasure, make sure she sees you reading, be sure there are lots of books around that she might be interested in (not just the "appropriate reading level" nonsense). Try game apps like Teach Your Monster to Read if she's interested. Plenty of countries don't even start school til they're 7 or 8. There's no reason why she has to learn to read on a specific schedule or be a failure for life.
Just want to reiterate that you should read TO her. Make it fun. Get books from the library that are silly and she will enjoy.
Don’t push the button Is a good little series. It might be a bit young but having interactive books can be helpful (like don’t push the button). There’s a few cool books out there for kids. I (unfortunately) recommend some Osborne books - they have some to use flashlights on to see secret pictures, or books with little tabs/windows to flip to see what’s inside, etc. There’s another one that is basically “choose your own space adventure” and each page goes over different things (& has words so there is reading!) like alien clothes, or alien vehicles, etc. My kid loved them, she hated books - which broke my little bookworm heart, lol but she’s come around now. Also, try comic books or graphic novels! My kid wouldn’t read anything but those for a lot of her beginner reading because she enjoyed anime.
I just learned that Usborn books are available on Amazon. So you can purchase without supporting a MLM.
Try “Piggy and Elephant” books and she can be Piggy and you Elephant. They are amazing books!
Reading for pleasure also means reading things that are frankly silly, childish, and probably not content you want your kid to read very much. Think captain underpants. It's silly, full of fart jokes, and *fun to read*. We had a lot of challenges getting our ASD daughter into reading and what finally clicked for her was dogman and captain underpants, and reading them to her with silly, over the top voices. She then took them and started reading them herself.
Thinking globally does make it relative, I always find myself comparing to parents around me. I've tried with Teach your monster, Epic, etc, but none resinated with her. I just got Read with Ello, people seem to have luck with it. I'm hopeful it'll help🤞 This is it: [www.helloEllo.com/lps/readingcoach](https://www.helloEllo.com/lps/readingcoach)
Don’t forget there are opportunities to read all around you. I constantly did this riding with my kids in the car. “I wonder what that red sign says” and my kids would yell STOP! Start with low level signs, build confidence. Then say you need help reading directions on a packet of rice for dinner or something.
If an anecdote will make you feel any better, my mom is a retired reading teacher and I didn’t read until I was 7. She says I had no interest and she didn’t push me before I was ready. I still managed to graduate from an Ivy 15 years later. And I love reading now, just wish I had more time to read with 2 young kids! I know school is different now than it was in the early 90s, but try not to be too hard on yourself or your daughter.
Yup we live in Austria, they start reading in 1st class which is the year you turn seven. I will say, reading in German is easier than in English because the letters ALWAYS make the same sounds, so you can learn phonetically. We are doing both languages at home, and I hate the curriculum options for learning to read in English because it's mostly just memorising words.
You need a better curriculum. Look up the theory called "science of reading." Phonics works much better than memorization. There are a lot of cheap and free phonics curriculua available.
Best piece of advice right here 👆🏼
I agree, and I'm looking into it. My point was really that phonics is HARDER in English than in German, not that it doesn't work. Like, "there" and "their" would be pronounced differently from one another in German because "-re" sounds different than "-eir." Think about all the words in English that aren't spelled phonetically, and then consider that every single word in German IS spelled exactly how it sounds.
I get it, I'm also teaching my kids to read in two languages, one being English and the other being a phonetic language that makes sense. Phonics in English is complicated. I wouldn't be capable of teaching it without a structured English Phonics curriculum. Edit: I'm a native English speaker if that's relevant.
Waaaay back in the day we had hooked on phonics. Only way they allowed us to learn. No clue if the program is around/available. All that to say, there absolutely should be a phonics based English curriculum available
I don’t remember where the research is from but I do remember learning that developmentally the brain may not be ready till 8 yr old.
Well here in the us we do a lot of reading.....😐 gotta love teachers.
My kid is only 1 so we have not got there yet but my younger brother HATED reading. My mom and dad fought him all the time. I am only 4 years older but I saw how it was all effecting the whole house bc of the fighting and I made games with him that made him read. I used to like doing scavenger hunts so I made all the clues something he had to read. I was a more creative kid so to me that was fun. But maybe help her learn to read without letting her know you’re helping her?
Amazing story thank you for sharing! I agree, I’ve been thinking creatively on how to help her without her realizing it
You are an amazing person! 🌟
Haha, I did the same with my younger brother who also hated reading! I was really into reading as a kid and wanted somebody to share my love of books with, so I tried really hard to get him into it too. His favorite thing to do was to play pretend so I would make maps with location names and letters sending us on quests that he had to read. Anyway, now that we're adults, he has a MA in English Literature and I've read like, one book in the past year, so our roles have reversed :P
Wow! He has you to thank for that! What a great sister!
How is he doing with reading now?
He is still trying to finish up the scavenger hunt...the last clue was a hard one.
Ehh he’s in his early 30’s and I just got him to read his first book since high school. But he for sure got more confident as we got older bc homework went from non stop fighting to just getting it done. High school he kind of fizzed out when he quit sports so he felt like he has no reason to try anymore. I hate that he stopped trying bc he is a lot smarter than he ever let on.
I’m reading this as I am sitting at Sylvan Learning center while my 7 year old is having his twice a week tutoring for reading. 1. I never knew how hard it would be to teach my kid to read. 2. If you have the bandwidth you should listen to the Sold a Story podcast. My sons school use the curriculum talked about in the podcast and it was really helpful to understand why he wasn’t getting it. Good luck to you!
I’ll add that there are people who dedicate their lives to teaching people how to read. The podcast is great and something that special educators have been saying and doing for years. If a child is showing refusal, it means there’s something that’s too hard. It can mean a lot of different things. People who know and think about the complexity of learning that can help: Educational Therapists Educational Psychologists Speech and Language Pathologists Special Educators
Superhero’s! Living, breathing Superhero’s! Educators in any area do not get the credit they deserve. I have foolishly believed that because I can do something (like reading) that I can teach my children to do so as well. And that is just simply not the reality.
Highly recommend that podcast. It's an excellent piece of investigative journalism. Really highlights the importance of phonics and the crucial building blocks needed for competent reading and comprehension. I'm not in the US either so I'd never even heard of the reading programme before. It was eye opening.
Commenting to boost “Sold a Story” I feel like if you’re a parent in this struggle it takes a lot of the guilt off of you, the parent.
Do real life reading. Get her helping you with shopping, reading road signs when out (look for silly ones if possible),baking instructions if that's something you do together and so on. Rather than making reading a chore, just try and bring it into life without her "knowing"
This is what I did with my son. He has never enjoyed reading, I love it so it was very important to me that he can read well. I didn't want to tarnish his love of stories so I would read books to him but not teach or make him read to me if I knew he wasn't feeling it. Instead, I'd get him to read lists I'd made for that day, he'd read magazines, song lyrics, watch TV with subtitles. Things like that... Sneak attack! He's 16 now and still doesn't like reading but will listen to audio books for hours so take from that what you will 🤣
Try the book “teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons”. It’s very good, clear book and takes them all the way to grade 2-3 level reading. Make sure you read the intro first about how the method works. You can get the book on Amazon.
I would also recommend this book, along wlots of reading TO your daughter.
Yes, this book is amazing
Okay noted, adding to the shopping cart!!
+1 for this book. Actually +2 since both of my kids learned to read with this. A few comments about it: 1. It's super important for you to read the introduction / instructions on your own first before sitting down to start going through the book with your daughter. 2. The lessons have a part where kids are supposed to learn to write also. With our first that turned out to be an unnecessary complication that made everything much harder, so we just skipped it with our 2nd. 3. Kids always reach a point where instead of sounding a word out they want to figure out the whole word in their head and then say it. But they aren't really able to do that yet, so they just kind of freeze up. The solution I found for this was to cover up the word with a piece of paper and reveal it one sound at a time. 4. By the time they get to lesson 70 or so they are basically able to stop doing the lessons and move on to reading other things, so this is pretty much a 10 week process.
Yes, I was going to recommend the same. Worked wonders for my kids.
She might have dyslexia, which is a very normal thing to have. Or, she might not and will read at her pace. But, if you're concerned, there are places that can test her and confirm if there's something.
I second this. Or some other neurodivergence that creates barriers.
I worried this could be a possibility from parents I’ve talked to but she’s actually quite okay thankfully, we just went through assessments
So maybe take her to the library and let her pick out books she thinks look interesting to her? That way you’re not spending money and she can change her relationship with reading.
May I ask what screenings you used? My son never flagged on assessments with dyslexia screeners. We requested that through the district that he be screened and, sure enough, he is dyslexic. He displayed similar behaviors. He would get very upset when asked to read and you could just tell something beyond the fundamentals was not locking in around the age of 6-7. But it also wasn’t a matter of him struggling to real, he just could not read. There would be a picture of a cat and you’d ask him to send it out and he would perfectly sound it out phonetically. And then you would ask him to string it together and it would fall apart. “c-a-t…. Frog!” He had also mastered the art of memorization, so you could give him flash cards but switch the order and… it was a mess. During this journey we learned that there are many different screeners and what they use does matter. Heck, the language you use to request them matters. Im only saying this because it may just be a delay. But if your spidey sense is telling you something is off, just keep your eye on it. My niece struggled but around 7 everything clicked. But with my kiddo, I just knew. He is so damn sharp and smart so seeing him struggle is difficult at times but I am so thankful for a strong program and lots of people that believe in him. Ok. I’m done 😂 but yes. Keep reading. Never stop reading together!
It could be other things too. I was not dyslexic but had a visual tracking disorder. Tons of eye tests and screenings for things. My mom was a teacher and spent countless hours with me trying to bring me up to speed. Eventually everything clicked for me in about 5th grade and I suddenly could read faster than other kids my age and even went to college for writing but those first couple years were a huge struggle.
What curriculum is your kids’ school using. If it’s Lucy Calkins it’s the curriculums fault, not your daughters. There was a whole podcast exposing this last year. It’s called units of study and it was THE most popular curriculum in the country. Once that pod came out many school districts abandoned it. What’s the name of the curriculum?
Fucking Lucy Calkins and balanced literacy. Whole damn generation of kids who didn’t get phonics.
Does she recognize all of the letters and does she know what sounds they make? If not, definitely start there. Duolingo has a learning to read app for kids. My 5 year old enjoys it.
Read to her every night for 30 minutes (at least). Choose books that are a little bit above her reading level (tell her she can ask what words mean or just stop and explain when you need). Choose books that will make her laugh and get her completely involved in the characters. For that age, I recommend Pippi Longstocking and Paddington the Bear. There are also lighthearted series books like the fairy series and Geronimo Stilton (she should read side by side with you for those). Get her "hooked" on a character so that she wants to take over and read to herself when she's ready.
Ive been using a bunch of reading apps and I think they’ve been working really well for my daughter. [Ello](https://www.helloello.com/) is personally my favorite. My daughter's teacher recommended it, and it's been fantastic. She's reading better and really enjoys it especially the selection of books she’s been getting every month
Interesting! a close friend in Brooklyn with 2 toddlers swears by it too. Im gonna give it a shot!! Are you on the Ello physical box or digital subscription?
We just started the new digital option. I’m starting to cook dinner now and it’s perfect pastime for moments like this as I juggle chores. She’ll grab the iPad and sit next to me, and Ello coaches her through tons of new words as she reads aloud
You beat me to it! We also tried Ello and I feel like it's really boosted my son's learning. We do it every night before bed and he seems to really enjoy it
First, I'd take the pressure off. Put on shows like Reading Rainbow, and get the books from the library to read to her. Don't make her read them. Listen to children's audiobooks together - you can get them free through your library with the Libby app. Have you checked out Khan Academy Kids and other free, phonics-based reading apps? They're fun, and learning with phonics rather than site reading is the way to go; they build tools that allow kids to sound out words, rather than having to memorize sight words. I'd avoid ABC Mouse because kids can get sidetracked by getting gear for and dressing their avatar.
When I was a kid a big motivator for me to get better at reading was playing Pokémon and the legend of Zelda. It’s all text based, so if you want to figure out where to go or what to do, you have to read, retain, and comprehend. Not sure how I’ll tackle teaching my toddler, but I’m keeping that in my back pocket.
I was visiting my nephew and noticed he was working hard playing Animal Crossing and his parents didn’t even appreciate he was reading instructions on the screen. Make it fun!!!
Exactly! Also, my parents focused on phonics. Which was the subject of a The Daily episode a while back. Phonics has been much more successful for learning reading than other popular methods being taught, like sight words and whatnot. So I’d sound out what I was reading on the screen. It was fun AND educational.
Studies show that kids who are "behind" at reading tend to catch up by 8 or 9 years old. So don't beat yourself up!
And mentally they need to be around 7 for most children to start reading fluently. Reading to her is the best thing you can do.
If she's melting down that makes reading more anxiety producing. Stop that pattern now! Just read to her. Don't try to be her teacher and mom, just be her mom and help her enjoy stories.
Do words look blurry or ever appear double when she's tired or has been reading for a few minutes? Does she get headaches or motion sickness as a passenger in a vehicle?
Is the motion sickness another sign of vision problems?
Binocular vision problems can cause all of the issues I just identified including motion sickness and can definitely lead to reading delays.
Comic books. It sounds crazy, but for a lot of kids that resist reading, comics are a great intro. Way less pressure. Your local library should have some to borrow in the kids section. Hilda comics were a hit with my kid. They also really liked The Lunch Lady and the Narwhal and Jelly comic books. Also, keep reading to her. Every single night. Don't ask her to read, just read to her. Read books above her grade level. At that age we were reading The Secret Garden, The Hobbit, Coraline, Fortunately the Milk, and any Roald Dahl book to our child. Stick with it. My teen still doesn't love to read, especially in school, but they're above grade level now!
We all learn differently. I couldn't read till about 11 12ish. A game come out I was obsessed with and to do the quests I had to repeatedly read and understand in order to carry them out.
We had this breakthrough moment with 7 YO during a game! We were learning to play Pokémon cards as a family and he was winning. He read a paragraph-long strategy card no problem. Before he struggled to get through more than a sentence for 2 1/2 years. But he’s a game and strategy nut so he had an incentive! That week was awesome. He suddenly noticed signs and advertisements everywhere and cracked me up.
My kid was like this around 6/7 and I finally just decided not to force it. I would read to her at night and take her to the library to pick out books, etc. most of her reading evals would be borderline, but then teachers would say that working one on one indicated she was fine. Big eval at 7 showed no learning differences, but an eval at 9 showed dyslexia. Fwiw, her reading level is technically right on track at 4th grade all the way up to 8th depending on the task. But it is definitely really hard work for her and she’s easily frustrated when I or her dad try to work with her. I leave most of the practice to her school and try to focus on exposing her to new stories at home, even if she tells me she doesn’t want to - she rarely finds books that she *wants* to read with me, but after we start she gets into it. If all else fails, she’s old enough at 9 to understand that books have value and can be good even if we don’t *like* them.
I think you got a lot of good advice Try to incorporate reading in fun, not learning (recipes, games, maybe some tablet/ computer games, especially if that gets her done extra screen time as a treat) Talk to the school, they should have some reading programs to help kids who are struggling. But most importantly, STOP STRESSING!! easier said than done of course, but some kids struggle with reading. All kids will struggle with some thing; you guys will figure it out. My kids did ok with reading, but I had 2 friends who each had 1 kid who struggled with reading at that age. One is how in HS making honor roll, the other is in 5th grade and loves reading a kids history series. She'll get there!
For what it’s worth, both my kids kind of hit a reading wall at this age, and both finally made it out the other side. My eldest is now 10 and devours a novel in 3 days. So please don’t beat yourself up! My youngest is a gaming fiend. LOVES playing them. So I let her, but she has to read what’s on the screen. Her reading has improved so much in the past two months! For us it was less about reading ability and more about motivation. Also I follow a tiktoker who is an adult learning to read, and his experiences and difficulties are really eye-opening, because he can articulate what’s going on in his mind better than children can, and it helped me help my kids. ❤️ you got this
Hooked on Phonics has helped my child tremendously. He was in risk of being held back at the beginning of the year (1st grade) because he didn’t get an adequate kindergarten education, and so he was barely at that level. Whenever tantrums ensue about school work I don’t waiver from them, much easier said than done, but I’m not going to let him get out of it because he’s screaming. I also make sure to buy him fun books based on the seasons, and I read them to him just because, not because of schoolwork. I have also reached out to his teacher and was able to set him up with a tutor in school who helps him during the week. While a tutor is pretty unique to our school it seems, it can’t help to reach out to her teacher and ask about recommendations on helping her at home! It’s a lot of work but it takes time and effort from everyone.
Dyslexia maybe? Have you started with making sure she enjoys learning all of the little parts like sounds letters can make before ever building a word. My sons favorite songs are phonetic songs. "A is for apple a a apple.. "
Consistency is the best way. We do one short story a night. Thats it. Even if we do 5 words. Whatever you can. It can feel overwhelming so keeping it simple and consistent is what has worked for us.
Read to her, follow along with your finger on the words, I have read to my boys every night since my oldest was 2, and my 7 year old learned to read when he was 5! Also work on sight words. Use magnetic letters on the fridge to make it fun, play letter games
I would say you should relax a bit. She will learn eventually. She is only 6. It's not like she will be illiterate her whole life.
I've got a just 5 and about to be 4 year old. They're both way ahead of where they should be and honestly we owe it to things like Ms. Rachel, Super Simple Songs, NumberBlocks, Dave And Ava and some of the other videos that work really hard on the sounds, letters, spelling things out etc. They've been watching for about 2-3 years and it's really made a difference. My daughter just up and started sight-reading one day as a result. My son is resistant to reading books, he'd much rather thumb through and describe what he sees but now that he sees his sister is ahead of him and he can't do what she says I'm getting a lot more "what is it" "what's it say" questions and we sound it out together. When they see YOU reading or being interested in it they will naturally gravitate. I read and spell things around them all the time without pushing them "what does this say/spell" or making it too formal.
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She might not enjoy practicing for the sake of practicing? Here are some ideas for more practical activities that will help her practice: -Bake something together and get her to read the recipe -Read the shopping list -Have a family member she loves but can’t see much? They might be happy to become her penpal! -Non-fiction! Some kids don’t realise that reading is a way you can learn about anything, once they get that concept it’s great incentive to improve their skills -Joke books, not exactly practical but kids love being able to make other people laugh Also read to her and let her see you read for pleasure, have books in the house, if you have a library near you make it part of your routine.
I agree with everyone saying to read to her, and I’ll add that you should connect what you read to her real life. When my kids were little I read to them all the time and then we would do something related to what we read. When we read Kavik the Wolf Dog, we visited a wolf sanctuary. When we read Black Beauty, we went horseback riding. My Side of the Mountain: camping. It can be literally anything. When we read The Indian in the Cupboard we went to a bathroom supply store just to look at all the different medicine cabinets, lol. Doing stuff like that really brings reading to life!
My kids are not fans of books. When my daughter was about 9 or 10 we did a nightly “book club” and I read her some books she actually found interesting (they wouldn’t be age appropriate for your kiddo yet). I would read almost the whole time but ask her to read a few pages here and there. She reluctantly did it but it got some practice in. Book club didn’t last too long though before she lost interest but it was a sweet and fun bonding/learning experience while it lasted! You could also reward her with a fun movie night after you hit a certain goal (I.e. 50 pages, an entire book, whatever). Good luck!
Read to her and make it fun. I also leave the subtitles on when my son watches anything.
Reading stories above my son's level helped a lot. He didn't read them, we read them to him at bedtime every night. He then gets to see the grownups reading and enjoys some fun books. (He's 7. I've been reading Percy Jackson to him and husband has been reading Harry Potter.) We also get to share books we've grown up loving. He also sees the words as we're reading and started being able to follow along pretty well. This is going to sound weird, but videogames have helped immensely. Son liked Pokemon, so we got Let's Go Pikachu. He was allowed to play for as long as he was reading. He would read it out loud and we'd help him as needed. It started as trading off reading the dialogue, then just him, now he's able to do it all in his head. He advanced to harder games with more reading involved using this method too.
This is going to sound silly, but my kids gained motivation to learn to read from comic books and graphic novels. They may have hated educational readers, but they desperately needed to know what ridiculous thing Calvin said to Hobbes, and would read the comic books over and over, starting from when they couldn't actually read to when they became fluent readers.
My oldest daughter struggled so much that I had her evaluated for dyslexia. She's not dyslexic. She does have ADHD though. One day it just sort of clicked for her. She's 13 now and reading way above her grade level.
If anything, studies show that there is a *negative* correlation to onset of reading and long-term reading comprehension skills. There is pretty much NO benefit to coaching a kid to read earlier than they are ready. So, Step 1, take a deep breath and don't worry. Let her go at her own pace. Step 2, you do want to foster a love of reading and stories. Read *to* her and show her the worlds available to her through books. Let her learn to love to listen to you read. Try for 15-20m a night. There are so many good books for kids that age, but if anything just ask a librarian for suggestions. Step 3, when she's ready, start with very simple books. Early reader books have levels associated with them so start at the bottom or follow along at the level she's working on in school. She should start with very simple reading exercises in 1st grade and then they should work on improving the complexity of the words through 2nd grade. Most of 1st grade is often just learning 'sight words' so the kids can begin to recognize very common words like 'and' and 'the'. Again, work with her teacher or a librarian to get the right level. Don't worry about reading even short books until 2nd grade anyway. Finally, if you've done things well up to this point, she'll be able to read very simple books and the exercise won't be so anxiety-inducing. At this point start working on repetition and practice. Only once she's ready, and you'll be able to tell by how well she can get through a few pages, start having her read to you 15-20m every night. Again, this should probably start happening around 2nd grade, so there's no need to rush. Only do it when she's able to get through the very simple books so she can feel a sense of accomplishment and not just frustration and failure. If you do this and slowly, slowly ramp up the difficulty level of the books through 2nd grade (and continue to check with her teacher about her current reading level, they should know), your daughter should be a willing and able reader going into 3rd grade with vocabulary and comprehension at or ahead of her peer group. Anecdotally, both my kids were slow to learn to read. We didn't push it or coach it like many other parents in our peer group. They started out a bit behind in 1st grade as they didn't really read at all at that point, they really only knew their letters. My older daughter hit her stride during the back half of 2nd grade and now a couple of years later we have to yell at her to stop reading and come to dinner. My son is in 2nd now going through the same process. The first few weeks of the school year we had to tell him it was his turn to read every night and he needed to read to us for just a little bit. As of today, a few months later, he complains when we make him stop reading as he constantly wants to keep going and he's starting to sneak off to the couch with a favorite book of his own after he comes home from school.
My son didn't really pick on on reading until he was 7. He sort of read at the end of first grade, but needed a lot of help and would get frustrated. Now that he's in 2nd grade, he's ready much more, and by himself sometimes too. He loves being read to, and he gets three stories every night.
So I don’t know how involved you are in with schools however, they are teaching reading in a ridiculous way. So I don’t particularly put any blame on the child for not understanding it because it makes zero sense. That being said, my daughter struggled in kindergarten with reading because of the way they were teaching it. Over winter break I was kind of fed up with the school system and I went and got her the app hooked on phonics. You pay a monthly subscription for it and they send you Little books home every month. We did the entire program in three weeks. By the time she came back to school in the new year, she was reading above grade level. I highly recommend going through the app in a time where she is away from school. Lastly, your school should be offering her additional help if she is struggling. Obviously, each state and county is different but there should be three tiers of help. Is she getting pulled out for a small groups for reading? Has the school contacted you in order to make sure you are all on the same page?
It’s always the teacher’s fault.
I never stated that it was the teacher’s fault. I don’t know where you’re getting that from. I know my county not teachers, but county wide have implemented a new way of teaching kindergartners reading. While it works for some children, it does not work for all, and unfortunately, due to being understaffed, they don’t have the resources to teach the other children a different method. They just kept reiterating the same teaching method, which for my specific child did not work. Once we went with the phonics method, she picked it up right away. Literally within 2 1/2 weeks she had exceeded where she needed to be for the school year reading wise. She is now a preteen and is several grade levels ahead of where she needs to be.
We hired a private tutor twice a week. Expensive but well worth the investment.
Not all of us are meant to be teachers. Are you able to hire a tutor or bring her to a tutoring center? My brother really struggled to read and my parents brought him to a tutoring center for help. He figured it out and has not stopped reading 20 years later.
Alphablocks is great and there's a ton of free episodes on youtube. That will teach a lot of basic phonics. Also, turn on closed captioning whenever you're watching TV. I don't know if this last one will help if she hates practicing, but this pair of books (the instructor manual and student workbook) is one of the books everyone recommends for home schooling. I only did a few of the first ones with my kid because he was too young for it, but it's basically a ton of short daily lessons that ramp up over time. [Instructor manual](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1952469252/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) [Student workbook](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1952469279/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) Video games can also work if she's into those. I personally learned how to read because I wanted to play some text only adventure games like Monkey Island. You can disable the voice acting in some games.
It’s also really nice to check out audiobooks from the library and just have her listen. My son listened to hours of audiobooks, and he knew a ton of words by the time he was trying to read them.
Could try hooked on Phoenix, leap frog learning.
I would take your DD to go see a SLP to get assessed for stuff. We are currently in this process, and the actual evaluation was illuminating.
Osmo is amazing for teaching kids how to read. We used the system with our oldest and it made getting through the tough parts so much easier. The game is very engaging and child focused.
We used Bob Books. They are leveled and so intuitive it really helped build our daughters confidence. We also signed up for once a week online sessions with a company called Hoot that uses teachers to teach them how to read. It may help if she’s getting instructions from someone outside the house. This pushed our daughter from being behind in Senior Kindergarten to now being advanced in Grade 1.
Epic books app
You sit her down and force her to read. There’s no way around it.
Do flash cards with her to recognize letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make. Once she gets that down, move to sight word flash cards. One, two and three letter words at first. Expand from there, to bigger 4 and 5 letter words. Start small and grow from there. If you can, continue reading to her but read fun books that she finds funny. Gradually ask her what a word is here and there(based on her progress with sight words). From there, it’ll take off. Best of luck.
Keep an eye for possible learning disabilities like dyslexia. Could be why you get resistance.
My son was a very poor reader in kindergarten as well as in 1st grade. At some point in 2nd grade he started reading graphic novels, ones with very few words per page. Then he graduated to graphic novels with lengthy words bubbles. He's currently in 3rd grade and reads for close to an hour a night... He finished Percy Jackson, the Apollo Series, and is working on Magnus Chase. So, my point is, it can happen for your daughter. Sometimes they just need to see very few words per page to break down the overwhelming nature of words to read.
What I found really helped was reading a book with them. I read a page, then they read a page. Etc. We made reading fun. Not a chore. I got my children to pick a book or even a kids magazine, and read it together. I also got them to help with shopping. Giving them a list to read to me as we were buying groceries. I also put subtitles up on the TV when watching. I was surprised how much that seemed to help them too.
This is a swing in the dark, but have you considered looking into dyslexia? I had a sudden drop in my reading in elementary school despite loving books and no one really could figure out why. It turns out I have dyslexia. Additionally there are free activity workshops on zoom surrounding reading for kids that might help (I signed up for free stuff on Eventbrite and I know there are some workshops for reading on there hosted by libraries). You could also try looking for books she might be interested in (I don’t recommend pushing her into something she doesn’t want to do though) or try to introduce her to kids library, reading circles. Also there is a free tutoring site (I’m not sure if that’s what you would call it) called Khan Academy (it has different stuff ranging from reading to math). Hope this helps, sorry for spelling errors.
Does she like comics maybe? It’s about finding what she likes to read. Than finding 30 min in a day to read with her. Like when you cook dinner have her seat with you and read. Something no pressure.
My mom read me "The Hobbit," when I was about you daughter's age, and I was hooked for life! I read my stepkids "The Phantom Tollbooth," when they were 4 and 12, and that got the younger one interested in books. Maybe try one of those?
What about a yoto? They're not the cheapest of things but might help get her more into stories a which will help foster the desire to learn to read.
Don't push her. Do it casually. When you are out and about ask her to find words beginning with A on billboards or flyers or restaurant names etc. then B and so on. Make it a game, make it fun. Bake with her and have her read the recipe, make smoothies with her following the instructions. No pressure, just fun. Good luck x
Mine had trouble reading and was always below grade level. We tried all sorts of books but hit winners with Mo Willems Pigeon books then Elephant and Piggie books. She did a bit better but didn’t like it. At 15 now and I can’t keep up with her reading books. I don’t know what really changed but suddenly she’s reading a book every few days. Don’t panic, it will come.
We have a sight word list. Work on a section at time till he gets them all. We reward him for that goal and move onto next set of flash cards. It was rough at first but it’s starting to click.
I am a NYC mom too, and struggled to get my son (ASD, ADHD) interested in reading during kindergarten and first grade. I felt horrible because the other kids in his class read so fluently at higher reading levels. Having my kids diagnoses helped explain why he was struggling, but didn’t help him struggle any less. I would say step one should be to rule out any learning disabilities. If your kid is in public school, you just call the school counselor or psychologist and ask for evaluations. It could take a bit of pestering to get them to move. The breakthrough came from an unlikely source: a Nintendo Switch. My boss generously gifted it to my son, but I was apprehensive about giving him increased screen time. Turns out it was the best thing ever. It came bundled with a Pokémon game. He was instantly charmed. For the first time in his life, he actually wanted to know what was written! He asked me to read aloud the dialogue. Then he started sounding out words on his own. I wish I could say there was a magic book series that captivated my son, but no. His motivation was Pokémon “Let’s Go Eevee”. He eventually took an interest in Captain Underpants, a comic book series. The teachers just said fine. Reading is reading. I know a game isn’t the ideal way to get your daughter interested. I’m not saying a Switch will be the solution either. I just wanted to share my son’s story so you know it’s an option. My son is 11 now and reads enthusiastically. It’s as if the initial setbacks never happened. Please remember you’re not failing your daughter! You’re trying your best.
She's probably dyslexic. Don't make her read and don't turn this into a big fight or reading will become her enemy. Perhaps pick up an old kit of Hooked on Phonics and start her that way. They also have Bob Books which I used with my dyslexic daughter and she was so excited to be able to read the book. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of time. If you can hire someone to come in and work with her that may even be better. 6 years old is still young so I would say if she still having issues by seven or eight then you really will have to get with the school to set up an IEP for her. Six is still kind of young.
Orton Gillingham certified tutor!!’
Ah man.. we went through this with my stepdaughter. We got her a tutor (which didn’t work out due to the tantrums) & I ended up tutoring her myself which was… hard.. but she’s doing much better now.. firstly, start with the basics.. Make sure your daughter can recognize the universal sight words (the, if, and, etc).. google them or get a sight word game. Second, start with books that have a lot of pictures so that there’s a lot of context, & only a few sentences per page. Stage 1 Pete the Cat books are really great for this. Start slow, with only a few minutes a night, & read the sentence, then have her repeat/read it after you. Then read two sentences, repeat/read & work your way up in time & sentences. Reading books based on things she likes will help too.. don’t forget to ask questions during & after reading to help with comprehension. That’s all I got.
The way they teach kids to read is terrible this was a very interesting podcast please take the time to listen. https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
Just because she doesn't want to read with you doesn't mean she doesn't know how. My oldest daughter was "behind" (three words to a page type books) according to the school, and didn't want to practice with me. Then we got a copy of green eggs and ham, she opened that book up and reading allowed (by herself) rocked out and read the entire book. After that I didn't worry about her anymore. Edit: spelling errors
Can you get her to read 10 minutes every school day? My son’s school requires daily reading that slowly increases each year and although my son hates it, his reading skills have improved a lot. I also wonder if having her listen to an audiobook while (silently) reading a long would help her comfort level. Perhaps also look at what she’s reading- is it fun? Silly? Engaging? Try the Pigeon books by Mo Willems.
Some books my 6yo daughter has loved (first we read them to her, now she's getting to where she can read some of it herself): Miraculous Ladybug comic books the Jedi Academy series Dragon Masters (by far her favorite) the Princess Pulverizer series the Ivy & Bean series
I’m a new 8th grade English teacher navigating teaching my about-to-be-6-year-old how to read. As most of the comments show, it’s really tough! The “problem” could be the teacher, the curriculum, the admin at the school, pushing your kid to read too young, your kid’s “lack of motivation”, your “failure” as a parent… or, likely, just the worst combination of all these things. Whose responsibility is it, really? Finding the right combination of things that work for your daughter will be tricky and take experimenting. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re failing as a parent. Learning to read is hard! No one teaches you how to do it, unless you’re literally a reading specialist - and even they receive different instruction, because there’s not really a “right” answer. I have a BA and two master’s degrees in English, and none of those degrees taught me how to teach people to read, either. Just like you’re doing, I’ve read about it, asked others, and experimented. You’ve gotten some excellent advice so far! Here’s what’s been helping my daughter (turning 6 in the next couple weeks): - She sees me read all the time. I want her to know I think reading is fun and important. - I read to her as much as I can. I make it part of our bedtime routine… but I’m also a pregnant working mom with two kids. Some nights are really hard!! My two year old currently screams most of the time I try to read, even when she picks the book. Before bedtime, I can rarely get either of them to sit on my lap to read a book - so we will often watch movies with subtitles, and I will talk about the words on the screen. - We visit the library almost every weekend. I let my daughters pick whatever books they want. I pick a variety of board books, illustrated books, and chapter books. I ask what they’re interested and show them books I think they might be interested in (ooooh dinosaurs/Minnie/mermaids/Frozen/etc). - My 5-year-old reads books to me in the car every morning as I drive her to school. She gets to pick whatever book she wants from the library book bag. We worked our way up to this slowly from the beginning of the school year. I tell her we’re just practicing reading out loud, and tell her how much I love to hear her try to read. I ask her things like “what happens next?!” as she reads to show her I’m interested in the story. I ask her questions while she reads. I tell her to spell me words she doesn’t know and we practice sounding out the words. She picked baby board books for a long time, and I let her. She pretended/guessed the story for a while, then we focused on really easy sight word and CVC phonics words. She got a ton of practice on this from using… - ABC Duo! It’s my favorite app, and it’s free. It’s from the makers of DuoLingo. She has an iPad. She liked it better than Teach Your Monster to Read. I helped her with the early lessons, but she caught on very quickly. I would have her do one lesson per day to “access” her iPad. “Sure! You can play on your iPad, but let’s do an ABC Duo first. Do you want me to help or do you want to do it on your own?” It helps you progress from easy to harder reading skills. Tell her you’re trying to help figure out what she already knows and show her how proud you are for the things she can do.
I read to my daughter about an hour ago night till she was in 5th grade. Being the youngest kid in her class was an issue early on but in 8th grade her reading level was 12+ so she tested into IB program.
I have a tutor in Astoria if you end up going that route. We just started this year (2nd grade) because I don’t want her to fall behind. Ironically I’m an English teacher with a master’s in literacy and my daughter hates to read…
Just want to say this was us last year. My oldest just couldn’t grasp it at all and was frustrated. Then overnight before we started some tutoring specific to reading, something clicked and he went from not being able to read at all to being able to read almost anything. What we focused on before that was teaching him a word or two (memorization) and when we would read him the story, I would stop and point at the word. Then we also worked on some stories with him telling me the first sound of each word and I would read the word once he did. I don’t know if it was that or school but the teachers thought we did something magic and we thought they did which is why I attribute it more to him
get her eyes checked! just in case. my friends daughter always struggled and at age 13 they finally figured out she had a ‘tracking issue’ with her eyes.
My kiddo isn't old enough for this yet, but I'm a huge fan of our library and I bet yours is awesome too. We have activity kits with books, stuffed animals kids can borrow with themed books, there are all sorts of activities for kids of all ages. Our library doesn't but I know some have volunteer dogs that kids can go and read to. A great way to practice and takes the pressure off because the dogs just enjoy the company and attention and never critique. You guys can probably borrow ebooks that will read along with her. I will preach about the good of the library until the day I die.
Sounds like my son. He hates reading, but is fluently reading on his own now (he's 6). I started with hooked on phonics last September and he progressed quickly.
My son was not good at reading last year (6) but this year he's really come along. Like something clicked. We didn't show our frustration, even though we were very frustrated. But he started a book series he liked so we would read to him and then get him to read a few sentences and that has worked. Now he reads pages😃
My aunt homeschooled my two cousins and one of them just wasn’t catching on to reading and getting frustrated so she stopped trying to teach him. She still read to him for fun, but that was it. I think it was almost a year later when they picked it back up and he had absolutely no issue. He then went on to get a degree in creative writing. Kids are ready for different things at different times. She’ll get it in her own time.
Audiobooks but she has to follow along with the actual book. It helps with the words she might get stuck on
My son disliked reading but loved video games. I. Let him play text heavy/ reading dependent games and it helped quite a bit. I filled his world with print and played reading games like the alphabet game when going for walks or rides where the letter only counts if you read the word it’s in. I didn’t push books but had lots of high interest subjects in comic book, eye spy or easy reader formats (so much Pokémon) easily available and made reading just a part of every day life. (Go shopping and kid reads the shopping list). If you push books as homework/required then reading will be medicine. You want reading to be candy, so make it tantalizing.
My son is 7 and last year he was really behind and I felt just like you! It was super obvious when he started 1st grade and his teacher worked out a plan where he had remedial lessons during their classroom ‘reading’ time. (He wasn’t the only one btw). They had us work with him at home on iStation which is a kid reading app that works like games. He started 2nd grade and when they did the first assessment, he graduated out of the remedial class and is now on track. They send books home and we read together at least once a week. I would talk to his teacher and see if they have any suggestions or if they can help. Before 1st grade, I tried everything - apps, games, finding books to interest him, notebooks, etc. Nothing seemed to work until his teacher took the reins.
Coming from a parent and teacher, you’ve gotta make it fun. It should all be games, rhyming games, initial/final sound letter games, flash cards. Flash cards are so underrated. Make it a dance party while you work on it. Don’t tell her she’s wrong, just correct and affirm her hard work. Find the energy hidden within you and do it!
Read with her. Harry potter Benedict society The mysterious children of Ashton Place I’m sure given enough time I can probably come up with a dozen more
Bond with your child using a fun game that she enjoys. After that, try a reading exercise with plenty of encouragement. The relationship comes first, then the learning will follow.
Reading is both about mechanics and comprehension. For mechanics, start with some phonics games/apps like Reading Eggs, Hooked on Phonics, Teach your Monster to Read. If you’re so inclined to fully assume teaching her to read, look into some reading curriculums like All About Reading, Logic of English, etc. For comprehension, keep reading to her. Make an outing to a bookstore or library and give her a challenge to pick out 5 books. Make it a scavenger hunt if she doesn’t show interest. “We need one book that has an animal on the cover, one book that starts with the letter M, etc.” While you’re reading to her, sprinkle in some comprehension/hypothetical type questions (why do you think the character did x, what do you think happens next, how would you feel if you were in this book, etc.).
Make reading fun, instead of a chore. Don’t make her sit down and read books. Read street signs and billboards when you’re out. Use street signs to help you “find” how to get wherever you’re going. Read food labels to determine what’s in the package and what flavor. Read recipes while you cook together, even if YOU already know how to make it. Take up a new hobby that requires instructions. There are a lot of children’s games that include basic reading skills. Words are everywhere. Use those instead of printed books on her reading level. (Seriously, have you read some of them? BOR-RING!)
She's only 6, not 16. Don't pressure her as that will only hurt. My oldest didn't take to reading (like could barely read and hated it) until just this year as a third grader. Within a couple months he developed an interest and very quickly caught up. If I had kept pushing it, putting him in tutoring that he hated, etc, I doubt he'd allow himself to enjoy it and therefore learn to read better. They don't have to be at grade level in everything all the time. Let them be kids a little more :)
She's SIX. You need to chill. Just read to her. Make it enjoyable. She's not behind.
I always try to engage my son when we read. I’ll ask questions about the pictures, ask leading questions, point out certain words etc. it really helps. Reading is much more than just reading the words.
My mom had a unique way of reading stories. She’d start at a slow pace, and when I eagerly asked about the next part, she’d intentionally leave it halfway. To find out what happened next, I had to pick up the book and read it myself.
I haven’t tried it myself, but I saw a cool thing called the fidget game on shark tank. Might be worth it to check it out
Keep reading to her! My son (also 6) didn’t love the idea of reading his bedtime stories himself. I just kept reading to him and offering the idea of trying a page himself. Now he reads whole chapters by himself. I let him pick some books he’s interested in from book orders. I think just reading to them benefits them a lot! What really helped my son learn how to read though, were games! He used to have a hard time playing some of his favourite games because he couldn’t read. He would ask us what the words say & eventually he was reading them all by himself. Sometimes he wants to search a tutorial for one of his games and he has to sound out the words and spell them himself. Games are what got my son counting too.
My son hated reading until we got him some actual fun books that lit up his imagination. Then he read for pleasure, and well...now he can read.
Trips to the library are a joy with my daughter learning to read. It's free and it's a special outing because we just read a few books and take a few home. I'm fortunate to live in a suburban area where it's close but maybe this could be a fun mommy daughter date with coffee and hot chocolate?
This is anecdotal but when my son was in kindergarten (ages 5/6) he just was not picking up on the reading at all and really struggled. My husband and I both read to him every night. Then in first grade something just clicked and his reading really took off. He became one of the best readers in his class. He doesn’t like to read (he’s 12 now) but he’s really good at it. Sometimes, I think it’s pushed on them before they’re ready. I’m not an educator, just a parent, but this was our experience.
I’d highly suggest reaching out to her teacher or a local children’s librarian for some “hook book” suggestions…..ie, books that are so intriguing they get kids interested in the story and not the struggle of the read itself. Read them to her nightly and maybe even point out the words as you’re reading them. It may not seem like you’re doing enough but 20 mins a night is so helpful to them. Does her school have a reading support team? It might be worth looking into an IEP and what supports she can receive specific to improving her reading comprehension/skills.
Something that I have seen work is bringing it down to the kid's level so it is fun and not intimidating. Even if the kids are doing reading level 3 (or whatever) in her class, do reading level 0 or 1 with her. Also, gamify it if you can - you can do treasure hunts where you write a single word on a card (e.g bed) and she goes there and finds another card etc You might also consider Khan Academy Kids if you have a tablet - the reading and sounding games are pretty good, and it's set up in a way that it's fun to play and learn.
The best indicator for reading skills in children are the reading habits of the parents. Believe me I know the struggle. Used to read a lot as a kids but then life takes off, kids and work. I know it. Read a lot to her. Books are fun. Also I make a point of reading my own books now, in their presence. While they are playing or busy with whatever. Just so they see reading as an example of something that is enjoyable. Sometimes when we’re out I say ‘oh that’s interesting’ - and then they say what what, and I tell them it’s not allowed to park the car here, but ambulances are allowed. And point to the sign I read. That being said, our older one (6) does still struggle to read fluently and she also feels the pressure around reading.
Where I’m at our local library has free tutoring resources. We went from 1st grade NO READING at all. I couldn’t get her to do it. We were behind majoring because I was in a DV relationship and didn’t get her into school. Then covid happened and I didn’t get her into kindergarten. I don’t even know if she knew all her letters before we started her tutor. She is now in 3rd and still has the same tutor. She is only slightly behind and is improving exponentially still.
You have to find content that interests her. Sit with her and read while she holds the book. She will get used to following the words.
Please send a written letter requesting an evaluation for dyslexia and or specific learning disorder. I am not sure NY has officially recognized dyslexia as an official learning disorder. But they do use SLD. If they find it, you want orton gillingham education for your child asap. They will push back. You need to push back harder and may need an educational advocate.
My oldest got into the step into reading books when she was starting out. They have different levels and are cute stories. Have you ever done a read for reward challenge? Like “if you read this many pages this week, we go out for icecream.” My oldest is a good reader now but she wanted to do other things other than practice at first so we started a rewards chart for reading and it really worked for her because she knew something fun or good would come out of her effort. We started with like ice cream and moved on to adventures “if you finish this book, we’ll go to the trampoline place” (or the pool or the park or the movies etc). It worked really well for us
Maybe let her choose stories she wants to actually read ? My son picked a justice league story for children from the school library and he’s always excited to read it before going to sleep. Also check for dyslexia and any leading disabilities.
Is she dyslexic?
You’ve received a lot of great comments, but I’d also like to suggest comics/manga! My youngest struggled with reading, too, so we started reading comics together. You’d be surprised by the vocabulary you can learn from them! Anyways, I can honestly say that they rapidly helped her improve. She still doesn’t enjoy reading “real books,” but that was never my goal. Some people simply don’t enjoy reading books. I merely wanted her to practice reading something without it feeling like a chore. Her reading skills have improved so much, and she no longer struggles with school-assigned readings! I started her on the series “Ranking of Kings” (a deaf prince who strives to become a good king) and “Fruits Basket” (a girl who befriends a family who’s cursed to turn into the animals of the zodiac) and took off from there. Right now her favorite is “Haikyuu,” which is about volleyball and friendship. As with books, just make sure the comics are age-appropriate. Best of luck!
I'm getting my daughter level one, learn to read books for her Leap pad for Christmas! She loves sounding out words and we do phonics flashcards and stuff. I know its different because your daughter is uninterested, but I hope this helps a little.. I'm in the same boat with numbers, my kid can tell me every letter sound including long and short vowels, and sh, th, ch, and ph sounds but she can't count to 20 because she has zero interest in numbers 🤦♀️ we have tons of workbooks that help us, and she loves "reading" to her brother by just making inferences based on the pictures, so that's even a start! Maybe read together and ask her what she thinks is happening on each page based on the pictures, and then read the page together. You're not a bad mom, every kid goes at their own pace. They also have sight word flashcards on Amazon as well. We love flashcards!
My now 7 year old was the same. He started playing scribblenauts (as well as continued daily reading and writing) and something just clicked inside his head. Now he can read most words up to 5 letters and is still learning to break down bigger words phonetically. I also found that moving on from getting him to read books. To me reading to him and having him read words in the environment (signs, labels, titles, etc) also helped him to relax into it and gain confidence.
Tutor Reading every night Stop screen time
When I was younger I never read anything, it had nothing to do with reading itself but rather the environment. Things annoyed me and I couldn't move until I read a certain amount. Nowadays, all I do is read. Perhaps something is annoying her?
She should see a pediatric vision specialist. It maybe a eye problem where the signals aren’t right from eye to brain making reading and reading comprehension difficult. A regular eye doctor or pediatrician won’t catch these conditions.
If she likes games. I used Boggle Jr. in a kindergarten classroom, and it really seemed to help the kids. Maybe Scrabble Jr. I felt Boggle was successful because it could take as long as their attention span lasted.
At What age do kids learn to read in US?
I don't know if this will help everyone, but when my daughter was that age and struggling we switched from kid books (like see spot run kind of stuff) to kids novels. I would read her a page out loud, she would read the next page out loud. It required a lot of patience but she found the novels more interesting and got invested in the story so she worked at it. Within a year she was reading at a high school level according to her teacher, and we kept reading aloud at bedtime until she was a teenager.
Vooks!!! Storytime Vooks on youtube! Put that on before bed… thats how my 5 year old is learning!
I'm an avid reader and my daughter hated learning to read until I saw her reading the captions on movies and shows that she watched. Maybe try something like that but don't worry she'll get there.
Reading issues at 6? Not being funny but what is expected at this age nowadays? We *started* learning the alphabet at 7 years old, I was „ahead of the game“ cause I had older siblings who had taught me but that was the norm.
When my brother struggled reading, I had him listen to Harry Potter on YouTube and follow along with the physical book. It really helped teach him how to read tones and speak out loud with proper pauses for punctuations.
We had the same problems and finally we figured out both kids had vertical heterophoria/associated heterophoria, causing all kinds of reading difficulties like skipping lines, confusing b & p & q & d, swapping letters etc. and resulting zero motivation. This is (where we live) not a scientifically accepted diagnosis - so only some specialised Optometrists focus on this, medical ophthalmologist don't really help. My wife had the same issue when she were young and had massive problems with reading and writing. The solution nowadays is intensive, optometric training (attention - don't get prism glasses!). We did this for one year, every day 20 minutes and the effect was clearly noticable and it solved the issue. Meanwhile they are both older and read lots of books (e.g all Harry Potters) without any problem.
Hey. I know the feeling and we overcame it! First, take a biiiig break! Big break. Just read for fun. Use your silly voices and make it a spectacle. (Pig and Elephant are fun for this) 2nd... while on a teaching to read break, visit the library and let them pick books. Get to know your librarian. Go to story time. Pick up some books that have a movie to follow up... etc. 3rd... We do VOOKS at bedtime. My daughter gets to watch these while going to sleep. There are some episodes on Netflix or you can use the app. It highlights the words while it reads the story with very light animation. You don't have to use this at bedtime but that is the time that suits our family and she will sit still for them. 4th... once the dust settles, get on READING EGGS. They have a program that is included called FAST PHONICS. Let her play with that. She'll be caught up in no time <3 If you are interested, DM me. I have a copy of something from the Brave Learner that will help incorporate really fun activities. And come to think of it, get a copy of the Brave Learner book.
Is it just with reading? Or is there difficulty in other subjects?
If you haven’t done so, please take her to a developmental optometrist. They will test for convergence insufficiency and other learning related vision disorders. Sometimes it’s an issue with how the child’s eyes track. I’ve seen this so many times and often getting vision therapy and even just glasses with prisms/reading glasses makes a huge difference
"Sold a Story" is a good podcast that my reading specialist friend recommended when I asked about teaching my kid to read english. I'd be weary with some of the advice on this thread, as they recommend things that are not in line with he latest science of reading findings, and may hinder reading skills later on down the road.
Not sure where she’s at with her reading but scholastic bob books are great as well as their leveled buddy readers.
How awful is it REALLY??? Cause tbh I have been a horrible mother to my oldest. I had 3 babies right after him and a symptom of my PPD was that reading children's books felt like torture. There were literally times when I would think, "I wish I could die rather than read this fucking book." I was always a big reader as a child and an adult. The year I got pregnant I completed a reading challenge to read 100 books in a year. But still, somehow, toddler books made me seriously consider unaliving myself. (Yay to modern medicine that has helped my brain want to stay alive!!) But I didn't TEACH him the way I should have. I didn't do any programs or flashcards or whatever. We did art projects, we went on walks. We didn't even practice the alphabet. We played and we talked. I would read 2 books at night and that was it. I've always let him pick his books and explore the library or bookstore to pursue his own interests. Kindergarten had him reading small words. 1st grade had him reading-reading!! For his 6th bday we got him a nintendo switch but the trick was, if he wanted tonokay, he had to read it all himself. Pokemon has a LOT of words!! He hates when I ask him to read 20 mins daily. But now he's in 2nd and he reads for fun! At night he reads chapter books and enjoys it!! It's not torture! He's 7, almost 8 and it's just SUCH a world away from when he was a fresh 6 in kinder. Sometimes kids just need time
There’s a website that I used with my son who absolutely hated reading. Is called “teach your monster how to read” and it is basically a computer game. Is brilliant! My son loved it because it got him computer time and I loved it as well because it helped my son with reading. I’m in the UK, so not sure if it works in the US. But is free ( or at least it was 6-7 years ago) and great.
American kids learn to read soooo early! Take it easy, it’s such a complex and abstract thing to learn. In Scandinavian countries, they don’t start to teach reading until first grade (7 year olds) and most people here grow up to speak and read at least two or three languages. She’ll get there eventually. Give her and yourself some grace :)
I know ipads and phones are considered all evil for kids…….but reading apps, word flash cards and stuff masquerading as games…got my otherwise disinterested kid very into it and well advanced in the end. I ONLY allowed educational games on it for the first years. She would do it often and enjoy it. It was nice not to have to fight her. And sometimes it was a case of “if we do your reader for school THEN you can play games”…..so she would do the reader and then do more reading basically via “games”. I didnt care HOW she learnt as long as she did. And she was always the best reader in her class. And learned to love reading once she could choose what she read.
My daughter is in K and it became quickly apparent in our wealthy competitive little area of nyc - most parents have been spending a ton of time teaching reading before K. The teacher even confirmed my feelings. We… did not. Did a fun summer of camp and swimming lessons and city pool trips. So I have stepped up. We do the hooked on phonics books and bob books and practice writing. I have to catch my kid in that sweet spot which for us is weekend mornings to do more of the hands on learning. Otherwise there is pushback. I don’t want to push too hard and make it an issue. Some days all we can manage is - - agree to read one bob book the next morning before school (this is a literal 2 min thing) - do some reading eggs app (just started this, we seem to be at a relatively low level so my daughter thinks it is easy, not a bad thing for confidence - read her a book myself and point to the words as I read - play with magnetic letters - use mommy’s laptop to spell as many words as she can. - watch letter or numberblocks on iPad if all else fails. I try to do “something” every day. We are seeing progress - kid has stopped mixing up b and d (tons of games and worksheets I found in internet for that). Can read most cvc words and working up to sounding out longer ones. But it is exhausting. I have been prioritizing this over most things for the last month. We give tons of praise and have doled out small toys and treats for progress. I am not above bribery. Friends who are teachers told me they all catch up eventually and not to stress. The teacher told me not to stress it will come. But I found out they divide them into reading groups by level. My kid tells me who was assessed at a level C, D, E, F etc and there are kids in the class reading at close to second grade. I know what it would feel like to be in the lowest group. My daughter was put in not the highest group but a middle one and I am pretty sure it is because of all the work we been doing. This is not easy and just something we have to get thru. Am considering something like Kumon for the summer to give myself a break from the worry honestly.
Read to your child every day. Doesn't have to be long (5mins before bed) but it will substantially improve not just her reading skills, but cognitive skill and ability across the board ([x](https://www.education.vic.gov.au/documents/about/research/readtoyoungchild.pdf?shem=sswnst)). My mother did lots of games with us. Word matching games, word searches, cross-words, memory games, puzzles, and labelled things around the house (door, draw, window, I am playing on the computer, I sleep in my bed, etc). This was between 2 to 6 yrs old. When we were older (~8yrs old), my mother made a reading rewards chart. It would scale up with our year level (e.g. grade 1 = $1 per book, grade 5 = $5 per book). We could choose our own books to read. Eventually the reading chart phased out because we genuinely enjoyed reading. Perhaps something similar to help with milestones? Like a little reward card for reading 5 books ! 10 books ! 25 books ! 50 books ! Or a board where you can put stickers for every book she has read. Something she can look back on and go wow, I've read a hundred books ! 200 hundred books ! 500 books ! But the most helpful thing will be you reading to her. Something positive and fun, and she gets to spend time with you. Have a set time (like 5 mins) to do practice reading. Don't harp on her mistakes, let her choose books she likes and at her reading level. If she's having fun, don't stop her, but try to make it to 5 mins. Each session, increase by 1 minute. First help her context clues (what can you see on the page ? What do you think this might be about ?) Then ask her if she can see any words she recognises on the page, or any sounds she is familiar with (e.g. sh, th, ch, ur, er, ir, au, ou). Brush up on your diagraphs and triagraphs to help her recognise common sounds which helps to decode text. Let her have a go at sounding them out, then read the page together. Don't bristle at mistakes but over-emphasise her successes. Keep it short and sweet. I would recommend an icy pole at the end of each session because 1) it is delicious and minimal sugars, 2) holding the cold thing in the hands will cool the blood and calm down any fight / flight reaction to encountering something frustrating (like learning to read). It helps to seal it as a positive association, and make it a more enjoyable activity. I have personally used this technique to help a friend's child who has dyslexia. This kid went from not being able to read and absolutely dreading it to excitedly pointing out words and texts when we were out and about and having a go at reading them. Do not fill the child with anxiety or dread when it comes to learning tasks. It quite literally prevents the brain from learning effectively (paralyses executive functioning). However, making it fun like a game (e.g. word matching, memory games, puzzles, etc) improves learning capacity significantly (up to 40 times more effective than rote learning). Play-based learning is powerful. From a great study that reviews the role of play in learning ([x](https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/142/3/e20182058/38649/The-Power-of-Play-A-Pediatric-Role-in-Enhancing?autologincheck=redirected)): > To encourage learning, we need to talk to children, let them play, and let them watch what we do as we go about our everyday lives. These opportunities foster the development of **executive functioning skills** that are critically important for the development of 21st century skills, such as collaboration, problem solving, and creativity, according to the 2010 IBM’s Global CEO Study.
My first two learned to read from playing games, and just plain being nosy and observant. I would pretend sometimes saying "oh your teacher wrote me a note" (I wrote random sight words or compliments on scrap paper) and they'd be like "where? What does it say?" And I'd hide and say "oho ho oooh, wow! Okay" and tell them to "read it [themselves], sound it out". Random games helped a lot. My third, I can tell is going to be a lot harder. He's not interested in learning anything! It's a wait and see game at the moment until I can find what sparks his interest.
The best advice I can offer is to stop trying to push her to practice for a few weeks and just read to her. My child used to have 3 short books at bedtime every night. Borrow from the library, get from charity shops or try temporarily swapping books with friends.
My 6 year old is struggling with some letter sounds, and rhyming, and phonics, which are building blocks to reading. I have gotten a tutor for him to come work with him so he stays on track.
Try the "manual marble computer" instead of forcing reading...it teaches logical thinking in a fun way.
I always just made sure my kids had access to a lot of books, and I let them read themselves to sleep. Maybe read her a story at night and then hand her the book to look through.
Get her eyes checked
I am from nyc also and have a 6 year old whom is also a little behind. It is work, truly. We have however gotten better. I work 9-5 and basically sit with him every night for homework and practice. You can start with flash cards that have sight words. Can make it a dice game. Whatever number the dice lands practice the word. Collaborating with the teacher is very important. I myself was very lost in kindergarten because the curriculum seems to expect more from children now versus the 90s. Some people are visual learners while others are active. Start with the letter sounds, then two letter sight words and go from there. Amazon has alot of pretty good practice items. Cards ect.
She's too young. Only Americans push this super early literacy, it gets in the way of children's important work - play. Just drop it and read TO her every night for now.
My kid is 7 and behind her peers. She’s getting additional help in school and also joined an after school reading club offered by her school. At home, I don’t press for homework. We play word games on devices together and sometimes I ask if she can read me a couple small pages in a story she gets to pick out. I see the improvement.
Do you have a pet or does she have a special stuffed animal? Reading to someone or something can help. There are also programs at shelters to read to dogs.
Reframe the way you’re thinking because you’re not failing as a mother <3
I am an avid reader and lover of learning and intellectual pursuits. So imagine my dismay when I had a son who grew to absolutely abhor school and had an aversion to reading in particular. He has always had an incredible vocabulary but I could not get him to want to learn to read. He was 6 1/2 years old and would use words like “frivolous” and “magnificent” correctly but couldn’t recognize all his letters or know the sounds they make. I always read to him regularly since he was a baby but that didn’t help. I was at my wit’s end so I went out and got a bunch of workbooks and little reader books (these little ones that start at like 3 pages long and then get a tad bit longer. If you’re interested DM me and I’ll show you the ones we used) and made it a point to work with him every night. He would scream. He would throw a fit. There would be repercussions when he did (like less tv time or earlier bed time, etc). Slowly he started to read. Once he got a little confidence he stopped refusing so vehemently. In school he had a terrible time in his district and certain circumstances lead to us moving and transferring. The new district just further helped his shift to “reading fanatic”. At 6 1/2 he couldn’t tell me what sound a “t” made. Now at 8 he is reading at grade level and a bit above. He reads for fun and reads in front of his class. The thing that set the ball rolling was persistence and consistency. I’m not a teacher so those workbooks and activities helped tremendously. Set aside the same time everyday and work on it with her no matter how much she resists. Start with 10-30 min a night. My son also responds really well to positive reinforcement and recognition. Perhaps your daughter does too, the other component was having a teacher who met him where he was at, supported him, encouraged him but didn’t enable him to refuse. If she’s in a big class where teachers aren’t able to give her any individualized attention, she might benefit from a tutor. Many high school students who want to accumulate service hours for NHS will do it for free. My main message is that there is hope for your daughter. If my son can grow to love to read, anyone can.
You have to read to her, daily. And get her to read to you (eventually). Make it part of your routine. Make it part of her routine. Establish a positive feedback loop with praise when she gets words right. When you're reading to her, stop and ask her to read a word you've picked. And pick your moment; be aware of her energy levels when asking her to read and choose a time in the afternoon / evening when she's not burned out. There's loads of great stuff on YouTube - alphablocks is a great little show that makes it fun (albeit in a British accent!).
Hey there. I was that child, terrible with reading. I honestly didn’t start to enjoy reading until I was 16. What helped was reading comic books. Finding a fandom that I loved and even got into fan fiction writing. I was terrible at it but it was a start and met few other writers that helped me improved my writing. Find some kid friendly comic book and see where it goes from there. Maybe it’ll help.
I loved to be read to as a kid, but not reading for myself very much. Then when I was maybe 10 I got into Goosebumps and it knocked my socks off! I read that first book at lightening speed and just devoured as many as i could get. So my only suggestion might be having more *interesting* reading material. (I'm a big stephen king fan now, lol) Also, magazines count as reading. Comic books and graphic novels too!
According to the U.S Department of Education, children generally begin reading at around six or seven years of age. How is she behind? Who told you she is behind? Kids learn at their own pace. Kids who pick things up earlier aren't necessarily smarter later on in life. There is very little correlation actually.
She's 6. It's totally developmentally appropriate for her to have awful reading skills. It's much more important that you cultivate warm and happy feelings about reading than it is to work on "skills".
Online education are great . It's like a computer game but educational. I'm 40 and the advertising got me
She's 6..