Q: My son seems to mix up the sounds he sees and hears...
Q: My child is 4 years old and doesn't seem very interested in books...
Q: My son is in 2nd grade and can read OK but can't spell very well...
Q: My daughter is in seventh grade and reading and spelling have always been hard for her...
Q: My son is in 3rd grade and does not like reading. He never wants to read...
Q: If my child scores poorly on a reading assessment does that mean my child is dyslexic?
Q: My daughter's teacher told me that she thinks my daughter has poor phonemic awareness. ..
Q: My daughter is in fourth grade. She is not a very good speller. The weird thing is, she seems to spell the words wrong differently every time...
Q: My son can read very well. He reads the words but doesn't seem to understand them...
Q: My child is struggling with reading in school. I keep hearing about these commercially - available phonics programs and how they can help kids read better. Which one is best?
Q: My child is a fourth grader, and his teacher told me in a conference the other day that he couldn't read. How can I help him catch up?
Q: I'm trying to get my child interested in reading. I've bought her all the books I loved as a kid, plus new stories I think would engage her. Unfortunately, she says these books are boring...
Q: My fifth - grader is doing poorly in his history class. His teacher says it's because he can't do the reading...
Q: When my son reads out loud, he skips words and adds words that are not written in the text...
Q: Is it "normal" for my 2nd grade daughter to spell words with many missing letters?
Q: My daughter seems to read aloud with great voice inflection, accuracy and expression. However, she doesn't seem to understanding what she is reading...
Q: Is it helpful to read aloud to my child every night?
Q: My daughter doesn't seem to read as well as some of her classmates...

Q: My son seems to mix up the sounds he sees and hears. Sometimes he sounds words out with the right sounds and then says the wrong word. Once he read the word "stump." He said each one of the sounds, sounding it out. Then when I prompted him to put it all together, he said, "stank." Why does he do that?

A: (Let's Go Learn): The trouble you are describing sounds like weak phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to distinguish one sound from another in a word. A reader with fully developed phonemic awareness can think about the separate sounds in the word as well as the sounds blended together. Readers with weak phonemic awareness will have trouble sounding out words correctly and will sometimes have a hard time pronouncing difficult words. However, "phonemic awareness" has become a very trendy term in the reading world so people are starting to use it as a blanket term for reading troubles. Labels are less important than the symptoms he may be experiencing. You may wish to have him assessed so that you can determine his exact strengths and weakness in reading. Regardless of the label for the troubles he is experiencing, he is having a hard time sounding out words and needs support in that area.

Q: My child is 4 years old and doesn't seem very interested in books. Does that mean he won't be a good reader? Should I have him assessed?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Your son is too young to be assessed with a reading assessment. He is also too young for anyone to determine if he will be a good reader. (Some professionals disagree with me but I have seen too many young children forced into reading too young. A wonderful and wise speech pathologist that I used to work with said that a child who is ready to begin learning to read will show an interest in letters and sounds. "Don't ask the child to say the sound or to repeat after you. Say the sounds yourself and when the child is ready, he or she will start repeating after you.") However, a child with an aversion to books, especially the child who doesn't like being read to may have some reading and or learning difficulties in the future, or not. At four years old, it's just too early to tell. Reading to your child is your best bet for now. Reading aloud to your children is important on many levels. The conversations we have in our every day lives are just not as sophisticated as the language used in some books. Reading aloud to your child may by the only way for your child to be exposed to more advanced language. In addition, by your own enjoyment of reading you are modeling good reading habits for your child. You should monitor your son for the next year and pay close attention to how well he learns his letters and sounds in Kindergarten. Chances are, he will be fine.

Q: My son is in 2nd grade and can read OK but can't spell very well. Should I have him assessed?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Yes. The processing abilities that are required to make a good speller are the some of the same processing abilities that make a good reader. Beginning readers who have trouble spelling often have trouble becoming efficient readers as well. In my experience, adults who consider themselves poor spellers are often phonetic spellers. Take a look at the spelling mistakes that your son is making. Do his mistakes seem to spell out the sounds of the word? (kuk for cook, hoo for who, nite for nigh, joos for juice etc) This would indicate that he is trying to spell phonetically. If your son is making this kind of mistake, he is on the right track. He is putting the sounds of the words in order, a task some readers find very difficult. This kind of child may need a bit of support to learn the actual spelling of the words. Or does it seem that his spelling mistakes don't follow the sounds of the word at all? (sgt for sight, chrp for truck, ement for equipment, cshus for curious etc) Your son may be making one or both of these types of mistakes.

Q: My daughter is in seventh grade and reading and spelling have always been hard for her. Reading and spelling were always hard for me too and I still don't like reading very much. Should she be assessed or can we both be assessed?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Yes, she or both of you can be assessed. However, reading and spelling are not going to get easier for a seventh grader with out some intervention. (Instruction in reading is part of a school's curriculum through the fourth grade in most states) The first step to intervention is assessment. It will be important to know what her reading strengths and weaknesses are. If she has coped thus far, she is probably strong in some areas and weak in others. As high school and then college approach, she will be expected to complete larger and larger quantities of reading and writing. She may be able to get by but she may feel like there is not enough time in the day to do all the work required. Getting help now will be more effective than later. As for you, adults from every walk of life have difficulty with reading. Studies show that 20-30% of the world's population has weakness in the processing abilities necessary for reading. You may want to think about taking an online assessment; this can give you or anyone the dignity and privacy they may desire. Or you can go a different route and have your daughter and or yourself assessed by a local professional who can explain everything to you if you are not comfortable reading a report that would be generated by an online assessment. If you are interested in improving your own reading level, go for it by all means. I personally have worked with business men, construction workers, moms, grad students and even a few people in their seventies. It is never too late.

Q: My son is in 3rd grade and does not like reading. He never wants to read and is not interested in books. Does that mean he is not a very good reader?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Not necessarily. If he is doing fine with reading and spelling in school, he may be fine. However, he may not like reading because it is hard for him. Most anyone likes doing things that come easily. Third grade is a particularly critical time where reading is concerned. Third grade is the first time a student is required to read independently. A lot of readers realize reading problems for the very first time in midyear of third grade. Monitor his progress closely to make sure that he continues to make appropriate progress. Identifying a reading issue early is one of the most important things your can do for your child's reading abilities. A child who is one year behind this year will likely by two years behind next year and so on.

Q: If my child scores poorly on a reading assessment does that mean my child is dyslexic?

A: (Let's Go Learn): No. The term "dyslexia" has become a catch-all term for any kind of reading trouble. If you look at the National Institutes of Health manual of all diagnosable diseases, dyslexia is described as a significant gap between your potential and your performance in reading. Dyslexia can only be diagnosed by a full psycho-educational evaluation. Sometimes the "label" for the problem is less important than the symptoms. If your child is having trouble with reading, find out what his specific strengths and weakness are and help him develop his relatively weak areas. Dyslexia or not, he will need to improve his weaknesses in reading.

Q: My daughter's teacher told me that she thinks my daughter has poor phonemic awareness. Does that mean she won't be a good reader?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Not necessarily. Poor phonemic awareness is an indicator of reading difficulties. Phonemic awareness is the ability to distinguish one sound from another in a word. A reader with good phonemic awareness can think about the separate sounds in the word as well as the sounds blended together. Readers with poor phonemic awareness will have trouble sounding out words correctly and will sometimes have a hard time pronouncing difficult words. However, "phonemic awareness" has become a very trendy term in the reading world so people are starting to use it as a blanket term for reading troubles. Have your daughter assessed to determine her exact strengths and weakness with reading. Whether or not she has a weakness where phonemic awareness is concerned, if she has trouble reading, she should receive help. Treating the symptoms is sometimes much more important than figuring out the label of the problem.

Q: My daughter is in fourth grade. She is not a very good speller. The weird thing is, she seems to spell the words wrong differently every time. She spelled "straight" several different ways in the same paragraph. Why does she do that?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Sometimes these kinds of spelling mistakes are made because the speller has a hard time making a mental image of letters. This difficulty will make spelling very hard. Good spellers have the ability to picture a word in the mind's eye. After the speller is exposed to the word a few times, the speller can hold onto the image. However, this task is very difficult for some people. It is some times called "symbol imagery weakness." This same weakness may make memorizing words for reading difficult too. But aside from all that, knowing your daughter's specific strengths and weaknesses in this area will be important. The first step to any problem like this is assessment. Having your daughter assessed by a reading professional will be very helpful for you. Several of the same learning processes involved with spelling, are essential to reading. It sounds as if she has some strengths with spelling if she is able to think of several ways to spell words. Determining the gap between her strengths and weaknesses will help you to make the most informed decisions about instruction.

Q: My son can read very well. He reads the words but doesn't seem to understand them. He just can't seem to remember what the story was about. Some times he can't remember even after he rereads the story. Is this a reading problem?

A: (Let's Go Learn): It can be. It sounds like your son is doing quite well in the area of letter sound relationships, so there's a lot to build on. If your son can read the words fine but cannot understand and/or remember the story, he probably has some of the same troubles with oral language. He may not remember oral directions, may not remember what happened in a movie or may have a hard time following a complex conversation. This kind of problem is sometimes classified as a "reading comprehension" problem, but it should really be called a "language comprehension" problem, since the difficulty probably isn't specific to just reading. On the other hand, some children put so much cognitive energy into "sounding right" when they read that they don't focus on meaning. I have observed this most often when the student is reading aloud to an adult. Think about when you have to read a passage that has very difficult words in it, words that you don't use often. (Like an engine manual for a tractor) By concentrating on sounding out these unfamiliar words, you may not be attending to the concept of the passage. Try to observe your child to see if he has the same kind of difficulties understanding and remembering oral conversation. If he does, it may be a language comprehension weakness. If he doesn't, it may be a reading weakness. Either way, having him assessed to determine his exact reading strategies is probably your best bet.

Q: My child is struggling with reading in school. I keep hearing about these commercially - available phonics programs and how they can help kids read better. Which one is best?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Before you ask which phonics program is best for your child, ask whether or not the root of your child's reading difficulty's phonics. True, many struggling readers need to firm up their knowledge of relationships between letters and letter - patterns and the sounds they represent. But there are other sources of reading difficulty: New, or "emergent" readers, must master the "concepts of print" -- for example, reading left - to - right; return sweep, the concepts of a word and of a sentence; punctuation and so forth. Vocabulary and other knowledge the reader brings to reading also influence the reading process, as does a reader's familiarity with grammar and sentence structure. Experienced readers use all of this information - without even thinking about it - to successfully read for meaning, whereas struggling readers, as often as not, have difficulties in varying degrees in more than one of these areas. What's more, other factors can play a role in a student's success with reading in school, such as his or her attitudes and previous experiences with reading. So, to get back to your question, is a phonics program the answer? Perhaps. But the only way of knowing is to have your child take a comprehensive reading assessment such as that developed by Let's Go Learn.

Q: My child is a fourth grader, and his teacher told me in a conference the other day that he couldn't read. How can I help him catch up?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Popular perceptions notwithstanding, rare indeed is the child who "can't read" by fourth grade. While many fourth - graders certainly struggle with fourth-grade level reading material; they still may know a very great deal about reading. For example, they might be aware that print carries meaning; they might know the letters of the alphabet and many of the sounds those represent; they might know where on a page one begins reading and who to move from line to line; they might have a sizeable store of words they know by sight. The point here is that to help a child develop improve his or her reading abilities, you have to discover where the child is in the development of his or her reading skills and strategies. This requires a comprehensive, individualized reading assessment. Unfortunately, many schools lack the resources to implement such an assessment.

Q: I'm trying to get my child interested in reading. I've bought her all the books I loved as a kid, plus new stories I think would engage her. Unfortunately, she says these books are boring. How can I hook my daughter on reading?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Modeling your own love of reading is one of the most important things you can do to encourage your child to become a reader in his or her own right. Sharing the books you loved is a child can be an important part of that process. You may also want to consider other approaches. Start with your child's interests: Just what does he or she enjoy doing? What subject or topic holds particular fascination for him or her? Include your child in the selection of his or her own reading material when you visit the library or bookstore. You may find that expository books on particular topics - cars, pop-stars, music, dinosaurs, etc. - might be more of a "hook" that stories. That's fine! The important thing is that your child engages in the reading process.

A second thing you might want to consider is the reading level of the particular books you and your child select. Children can easily become frustrated by books which too difficult for their current reading skills (often they express this by dismissing a particular book as "boring"). Knowing this, some parents look for the "reading level" often found on the back or inside covers of children's books to match them with their child's grade level. However, that information tells you the book's level - not that of your child's. It is important to find your child's own reading level, which may or may not correspond to his or her grade level. A comprehensive reading assessment, such as that provided by Let's Go Learn, can provide this necessary information.

Q: My fifth - grader is doing poorly in his history class. His teacher says it's because he can't do the reading. But when I have him read his textbook, he has no difficulty at all. What do you think the problem might be?

A: (Let's Go Learn): There are any number of possible reasons why a child may have difficulties in a particular subject. In your child's case, his history teacher feels that the root problem has something to do with reading. Without knowing more about the situation, it's hard to say if the problem lies in the amount of reading, the interest the material has for your child, the strategies your child brings to history - text reading, or some other factor. You mention that when you have your child read his textbook to you, he has no apparent difficulty. If you mean that he's able to read it smoothly, without "stumbling," the problem might lie in comprehension. Sometimes students put so much cognitive energy into "sounding right" when the read that they are not actually attending to the meaning of the text. History textbooks contain features that can be challenging to children who are more familiar with narrative text: tables, graphs, headings, timelines and so forth ....

Q: When my son reads out loud, he skips words and adds words that are not written in the text. Does my son have a reading problem?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Not necessarily. Check to see if what your son is saying makes sense grammatically or makes sense in the context of the story that he's reading. Like adults, children often omit and add words in a story to make it sound like what they're expecting to hear. However, adults often catch their mistake when they notice that what they said did not match what was written in the text. When your son does add or omit words what makes sense in the story, reinforce the strategy that he's using, but also prompt him with a phrase like, "did what you say match?"

Q: Is "normal" for my 2nd grade daughter to spell words with many missing letters?

A: (Let's Go Learn): It depends on what type of letters is missing. By second grade, children should have good control of the sounds they hear in words and how they are represented by a letter or letter patterns. If your daughter's spelling attempts of words are "phonetically" correctly (i.e., all the letters appropriately match a specific sound) your daughter is still learn may still be learning the conventions of irregular words or words that she doesn't encounter often. These conventions are still working its way to her long-term memory. It's natural for second graders to still be learning these conventions. However, if your daughter is missing letters to many sounds that are in words, she may need intervention in accelerating her attention to the discrete sounds in words (or phonemes).

Q: My daughter seems to read aloud with great voice inflection, accuracy and expression. However, she doesn't seem to understanding what she is reading, what can I do to help her?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Do a lot of discussion about what she is reading. Before she reads aloud to you, talk about the book before you read together and get her ready to seek out information about the story as she reads. Model for her what good readers do when they are trying to make sense of what they read. That is explaining what runs through your head when you read. Ask the same questions that you would subconsciously ask while you're reading the same text. Discuss the events of the story as you together. You can even stop her occasionally and ask her what she is thinking after she reads a small section. Also, try asking her to read silently, section by section (paragraph or page) and describe what she read, have her draw a picture and explain her thoughts and feelings about the story while you help her make connections to what she knows. Sometimes children are exerting so much energy to sound "good" while they read aloud that they are not construction meaning from the text. That's why it may be a good idea to include some silent guided reading while you read together.

Q: Is it helpful to read aloud to my child every night?

A: (Let's Go Learn): Every exposure to reading and literacy-related activities is always helpful. However, this does not always foster the independence in using good reading strategies and behaviors. You can make reading aloud to your child a more meaningful experience by modifying your nightly read-alouds. For comprehension, talk about the story as you read it with your child. Ask meaningful "What do you think?," "How do you suppose?," or "Why do you think?," types of questions. Try to stray away from factual questions. To practice oral reading, take turns reading pages or paragraphs aloud. Or, when you use text with lots of dialogue, have your child take the voice of one character while you take the voice of the other character. Not matter what you decide to do; making your nightly read-alouds more interactive will make it a more meaningful learning experience for you child.

Q: My daughter doesn't seem to read as well as some of her classmates. When is it appropriate for my child to be assessed for her reading?

A: (Let's Go Learn): School age children's reading abilities can be assessed anytime. It's always a good idea to have a good idea of what your child's strengths and weaknesses are in reading. Although you may think that your child may not read as well as her classmates, but after a thorough diagnostic assessment, you'll have a better idea of you child's strengths in reading and will be able to address the particular needs of your child, regardless of the her classmates.