Resources for Struggling Readers

Okay, the hard part about helping the struggling reader is understanding why they struggle, what they need, and where a person can find resources to help them. Many times struggling readers get letters mixed up, or they think different phonemes (small letter combinations) make different sounds than what they actually do. Sometimes they can recognize and sound out individual letters but cannot sound out words or put those letters together. The following links help offer more information about these topics.

The Leveled Spelling Lists link provides lists of common sight words (everyday words) that children in each grade level will be exposed to. Parents/tutors can start exposing children to these words at anytime. In fact, if your child is only in first grade, go ahead and give him some spelling words from the third grade level, just to decrease that grade level gap if they are having a hard time with reading and writing.

The Understanding the Mind of a Struggling Reader link offers some explanation as to reading from the perspective of a struggling reader. There are multiple links within that site parents and teachers can search through to answer any questions about a struggling reader. What are they getting confused about? With what struggles are they faced? It is important for adults to look at issues from the perspective of the child they are working with, so they can work with that child on his/her level.

Two links to use for interactive sites students can manipulate in order to enhance their reading and writing skills are: Professor Garfield's Learning Lab and Student Interactives. These links recommend different interactive websites children can use to work on vocabulary, writing, organization, and the reading of both fiction and non-fiction texts. In our 21st century, children are not only required to read words from books and written texts, but should also become acquainted with the internet and technology.