We love reading!
Resource for
all Readers
Resources and Materials for Parents
For Parents of Early Childhood Struggling Readers
Articles:
Recognize Early Signs of Trouble
This short, easy-to-read article on the Reading Rockets site points out possible signs of trouble. For example, difficulty learning the alphabet or the days of the week could be an indicator. At the end of the article is a link to an online screening for parents of young children.
Seeking Help for a Struggling Reader: 8 Steps for Parents
This article on the Reading Rockets site offers advice about how to know when your child needs help. It offers options depending on the age of your child as well as providing sources for additional information. One of its key points is the importance of acting early and being an advocate for your child.
Web-based Resources:
Expert help: Helping struggling readers
This site helps answer the question of what to do if you think your child is a struggling reader. It offers expandable tabs about when you should worry and why they might be struggling. It also has top tips with easy to implement ideas like making time to share books and using technology to encourage interests.
Motivate your child by playing an active role in their literary development. This section of the Scholastic site has ideas about how to engage your child in the act of reading, taking advantage of libraries, and much more.
For Parents of Middle Childhood Struggling Readers
Articles:
Raise A Reader: A Parent Guide to Reading for Ages 11-13
This online article off of the Scholastic site lets you know what the expectations are for your child at this age. There are ideas for reading rewards, book lists, and online literacy ideas.
This article gives insights into what motivates struggling readers. It offers educators and parents advice about how to "hook" struggling readers by providing them with books that they are interested in reading. It discusses Hi-Lo Books, which are high interest and low vocabulary, the criteria for good Hi-Lo Books, and other good reads for reluctant readers.
Web-based Resources:
10 Things Parents Need to Know to Help a Struggling Reader
This section from the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity specifically addresses how parents can help struggling readers. It offers a guide for inspiring confidence in these young readers. There are valuable ideas like noticing and celebrating your child's success, setting realistic goals, and teaching your child to how to help themselves.
7 Tips for Parents to Help Struggling Readers
This site from the University of Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development offers ideas about how to help struggling readers at home. Some of the classroom interventions offer good ideas that can be adapted to the home.
For Parents of Adolescent/Young Adult Struggling Readers
Articles:
A Parent's Perspective — Tools for the High School Student with LD
In this Parent Perspective, Salle, the mother of a high school student with Aphasia, discusses the LEAD (Learning and Education about Disabilities) program at her daughter Hillary's school. Salle credits the program with helping her daughter develop the crucial tools necessary to succeed: self-advocacy, self-knowledge and self-esteem. In spite of dire predictions from well-meaning professionals, Hillary attended a four-year college.
Give Struggling Readers the Specific Kinds of Support They Need
This article discusses what works and what frustrates adolescent struggling readers. It gives parents insight into the increasing expectations that struggling readers face as they get older. To help, it shares word study ideas that parents can implement at home, next steps, and lists additional resources that parents and students can use.
Web-based Resources:
High Interest / Low Reading Level Book List
Hi Interest / Low Reading Level Books (Hi-Lo Books) encourage reading for the reluctant reader. Books are written at lower reading levels, but appeal to the reader’s interest level even though that might not match their grade level. Students, especially in middle school and high school, who are reading below grade level are more likely to want to read a book if it is not only at their reading level but also at their interest level. This ten page PDF offers examples that appeal to high school age readers, but at a level they can enjoy.
The Struggling High School Reader
Though much of the site is geared toward educators, it details why students struggle and how they can be helped. Parents can easily adapt ideas at the bottom of the page under the "High School Reader" subhead for students who are struggling at the high school level. Many of the ideas are quick games and activities centered around vocabulary building.
National Support Organizations
National Center for Learning Disabilities
The mission of NCLD is to improve the lives of the 1 in 5 children and adults nationwide with learning and attention issues—by empowering parents and young adults, transforming schools and advocating for equal rights and opportunities. We’re working to create a society in which every individual possesses the academic, social and emotional skills needed to succeed in school, at work and in life.
The Family Reading Partnership, located in Ithaca, New York, is a coalition of organizations, individuals, schools, libraries and businesses that is working to create a "culture of literacy" by promoting family reading practices in the community and beyond.
International Reading Association
The International Reading Association is a professional membership organization dedicated to promoting high levels of literacy for all by improving the quality of reading instruction, disseminating research and information about reading, and encouraging the lifetime reading habit. IRA members include classroom teachers, reading specialists, consultants, administrators, supervisors, university faculty, researchers, psychologists, librarians, media specialists, and parents.
The blog offers tips, strategies, and resources to help struggling readers. There are tips for reading or telling stories to activate thinking and encourage reading strategies. Another article features tech resources to support older students. The blog has ideas for all age groups!
Last updated July 25, 2014