Supporting Struggling or Reluctant Readers | S.16 Ep.7

Some children face challenges with reading, even after early exposure to books and language. Learn to recognize common signs of struggle and explore simple, effective strategies to provide support at home.

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Welcome back to the Science of Parenting Podcast, where we connect you with research-based information that fits your family. We'll talk about the realities of being a parent and how research can help guide our parenting decisions. I'm Mackenzie DeJong-Schelling, podcast co-host, and I'm a parenting educator. Hi everyone. Connie Beecher. I am a professor in literacy and a family wellbeing specialist, a parent and a parenting educator. Yes. And this season we have been reviewing all things literacy. We talked about the foundation of literacy. We talked about birth through our teenagers, those specific ages. And last week we talked about literacy in our communities, all during the 16th season of the podcast. We know that reading does not come easy to everybody. So today, our goal is to discuss the difficult issues that some individuals might experience while learning to read. The first term that comes to mind is dyslexia. So, let's use that as our diving endpoint. Connie, what exactly is it? How does that affect our reading? Yeah, that's a good place to start. So, dyslexia is a specific learning difference that is neurobiological in origin. And what that means is it's a difference in how the brain is processing information. So, it's the specifically though that term dyslexia is something that you might get from a doctor. So schools don't tend to use it. They might just refer to learning disabilities or learning differences. But that's the one that you think of, which is really difficulty in learning to read fluently. Sort of. It's important to know that's not, you know, it's not anything to do with intelligence. It's not laziness. It really is a difference because I know parents feel like, well, gosh, we've talked about all of these things that you're supposed to do, right? Reading and talking and singing. And they think, well, yeah, I did all of that. Right. I did all those things. And yet, you know, I can see that my child's still struggling and they might feel, you know, all right, wow, did I do it wrong or I didn't do enough? Sure. Yeah. And, yeah, we've we've talked about a lot of different things that that can play into what it, what it all takes. And then yeah, you get through that, and you're like, oh, what is going on? What is, you know, what is. So, you know, we've talked a lot about a variety of additional reasons that kids might find it difficult to learn to read. Maybe language development is difficult. What are some of those things that, some of the other things we might see? Yeah. You know, there's a variety of things. So, you know, as we talked about, reading does come from the language part of the brain, right? And we know that we weren't, our brains weren't designed to learn to read. We are counting parts of our brain, for this purpose. So anything to do with language development. So when kids have ear infections, for example, or any sort of hearing problem where that could cause a language delay that can potentially impact reading, even having a speech issue or some, you know, some kids may have some pronunciation issues. Because reading is so much about how these sounds of our language connect to the letters that can cause issues. We see children with autism, you know, could struggle with reading because that is something that causes a language delay. And sometimes, with those kiddos, they can they can decode. They might be able to read, but they don't necessarily understand what they [read]. So comprehension is there. And then, you know, just in general, kids who are very active, ADHD, they might be having difficulty, just like sitting still focusing. You know, you really do have to focus on the print and focus on their decoding skills, right? And so sometimes we can see some difficulties with kids who just, you know, struggle to focus in general. Yeah. So, let's talk through what maybe signs parents and caregivers might be looking for. There's a, you know, a variety of things. But if we think about early, you know, starting from those kiddos, toddlers and preschoolers, remember we were talking about them learning the alphabet. Right. Numbers, things that they need to learn by kindergarten. So if you see that your child has difficulty sort of remembering the order or being able to sing the alphabet song or if they have trouble doing it quickly, you know, if it's sort of slow. One thing we see a lot is, trouble distinguishing rhymes. So if you say cat and bat does that rhyme and they're not sure or they can't come up with the rhyme, you know, and again that pronouncing words correctly can be, you know, a warning sign. Something else is naming letters, associating them with sounds. So if you say what sound does a B make that they might struggle to say “b” or what sound does an F make? They might struggle to think that it says “ff.” They also might struggle to remember those printed words or sight words. So, in the early years in classrooms, sight words can come up, and they might have difficulty remembering what those sight words are. We also might see writing letters and numbers getting in the incorrect order. So if they're writing the alphabet, they might swap around some of the letters, or if they're, they're going 1 to 10, maybe it's 1, 2, 4, 3 that those might be signals to us to look out for. And then. Nope, yeah. No, sorry, I was going to say, you know, not to get that confused with when we talked about writing, that pre-emergent stage of writing, where, like developmentally for young children, it's normal to have letters, right, out of order, or to sometimes write numbers or letters backwards. But we should see kids moving out of that stage. And so, you know, when to be concerned is when they're still lingering in that stage after, you know, sort of other kiddos have moved on. Sure. Yeah. And then as children get older, kind of talking as they're getting older and like grades three, maybe to eight, some of the signs, what might some of those signs shift to as well? So then we're going to see some kids can hang in there in the beginning with decoding. When you think about like what we asked kindergartners and like first graders to read right, it's not super difficult. So some kids can sort of struggle through that. But then, as they hit that time of reading that we discussed where now we’re reading to learn new things. Right. Or reading that content now, we might see them, you know, reading really slowly. It takes a lot of effort. And because of that, they're focused so hard on the like decoding part. They're not necessarily understanding what they read. Like, all of their brain is just really focused on being able to read that. So, then we see them not being able to tell us about what they read, like having trouble remembering information. We're going to see difficulties in spelling and grammar. And then, you know, we also see sometimes difficulties just in organization. How to, like, remember when you had to write that five that essay, and it was very specific on, you know, so just being able to be organized like that can be difficult. Absolutely. Yeah. That like five paragraphs, intro, outro three content. Yeah. Yeah. You all know that. My mom was a language teacher, a middle school language teacher. So, yes. Reviewing that. And then that leads us right into those older kids, you know, we're not we're not just looking at the elementary age or even in the middle school. We can look at our middle school, high school-age kids as well and see signs, even into early adulthood or later adulthood, I don't know. What signs might be visible to those teens and adults? Yeah, that's very true. You know, there's a lot of adults who probably just don't read. And it's because they would say, well, I read so slowly. Right. So again, reading really slowly and accurately. When we get into middle school and high school now or no longer really getting reading instruction. Now the instruction is focused on can you analyze this text? Can you pull out figurative language or can you read this important bit of information and then like recall it and summarize it? And so like those are the things that we see the teens struggling with, you know. So, it might show up like you might think, oh, they're having trouble with history. Let's not necessarily history. It's the reading. Right. Right. They're reading those textbooks that they might be having trouble with. And then again, you know, remember how organized you have to be in high school. It's like so many classes, right? And keeping track of that, we see those kids that constantly struggle with organization or study skills. You know, that can maybe they've been able to get by, and it really starts hitting them, you know, in those later times. Absolutely. And I mean, full disclosure, I was diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood. And looking back, there are things that I was like, oh. Yeah. So things that, you know, in retrospect, retrospect, you're like, oh yeah. That might have been related to that. And then as we talk through what those signs are, you're like, oh yeah, yep, yeah. There it was. That organization, that time management, those that study skills. Yep. Right there. But as we talk through that, hopefully, I can make it sound a little more positive as I talked about my own experiences, but some of it can sound really negative. And we want to we want to help that self image. How can we manage the effects when a child does experience some of these difficulties, and how can we help them to have a better self image, have a more supportive environment at home? That's a, you know, a really key thing that families can do is create that positive support supporting environment at home. So, you know, help build your child's self-confidence and remind them that, you know, although you might struggle with this one task, there's a lot of things that you're good at, and other people struggle with things, like, that is a normal part of being a person. And unfortunately for some people, the thing that they're going to struggle with is reading, which we do rely on a lot. But think about, think about in the Middle Ages when people didn't have, you know, reading wasn't even a thing. It wouldn't have been. Absolutely. So, try to keep that perspective, but it is something, you know, in school, I just think it's really hard because kids know, right when they are not quite when they're when they can't read as well as their peers, they know. And it can be really painful. So, you know, just trying to let them know that they're, you know, they're not alone, right? Like, we're in it together, right? And doing those things that build their confidence, starting with what they know. And, I mean, it sounds weird, but you're making sure the relationship is really strong. Yes, absolutely. You know, building that relationship, listening to their thoughts and feelings, responding with empathy, all things that can help them increase their confidence in their abilities and build those skills. This sounds like a really great spot for me to do a shameless plug to previous podcasts. It’s really, you know, yeah. Okay, maybe it's a shameless plug, but we have an entire backlog of podcasts that relates to this exactly. So if you're like, okay, but how do I build a strong relationship? What can I do? I actually went into our online thing and just typed in relationships and found a few episodes. The first one that I wanted to pull out is from season six, specifically episode three. That one is all about that parent-child relationship. Like, that's the whole thing is building that parent child relationship. And then in season nine, episode six, we dove into the idea of attachment theory, how the relationship can help regulate, help with regulation. So how can building that strong relationship build regulation, which then really relates to exactly what we just talked about, building that empathy was thoughts and feelings helping them gain that self-confidence. It all just plays back and forth together. So if you're if you're at this point where you're like, okay, I want to know more about that. Those are my two recommendations to start with. Season six, episode three, season nine, episode six. Yeah. So shameless plug over. Let’s talk about the realities of parenting and maybe some of those specific strategies that parents can do to help support, continue to support reading. Obviously, throughout this whole season we're talking about supporting reading, but when it relates to maybe someone who is having some difficulties reading, how can we support that? And I do have to say too, you can't say enough about how being able to help your child regulate can help them just across the board. You know, it really is part of, you can think of their brains being so busy, right, struggling to do this learning task that they don't have as much resources for regulation. Right. So if you can practice that and work on that at home, that's it is super helpful. So, but yeah, there are things that parents can do. So we still want to do that reading time, and we still want it to be meaningful and positive. So, you know, in a similar way that we discussed in elementary, you can do modeling for your child and had them repeat and help them with that really specific work of breaking those words down, putting them back together. We know that working on phonics, in a systematic way, improves reading across the board. I mean, this is what we would do if we had an adult, right, who is learning to read. They would have to go through it, like, learn the phonics. So it's still we're still doing that. And in fact, we have because of advances in brain research, we know that we could see differences in how the brain is processing that information. Once kids have had that sort of intensive intervention. So, and then also, you know, helping your child with organization in general is going to help. So using those graphic organizers, helping them get their schedule, you know, doing things like using computers, playing games, and help with making learning fun s something that you can do. Making it fun. Making it enjoyable. You still get to have fun like still. The other piece that kind of I want to come back to is talking about advocating for your children. So one of the things that you can do is to check in with your child's classroom teacher to see what sorts of things you can work on at home as well. And we can talk a little bit about that in a second. But, we also kind of, in that vein, it's important to understand that accommodations can make a huge difference. You can advocate for those accommodations at school, like extra time for assignments. Using those assistive technologies. Where's my fidget? Some kids might find a fidget tool extra helpful. Maybe keeping their hands busy helps keep their brain engaged. That's true for me. Maybe a special seat. A timer that reminds them to get up and move more often. I know many adults have smartwatches that say, hey, it's been an hour. Time to get up and move. They’re accommodations that we might make for children who learn differently. It can assist them to have success. And if we tune in to what they need and make that accommodation, it can help them be more successful. But there is a universal benefit for all children, right? You don't have to have a diagnosis or, you know, those sorts of things to be able to benefit from universal design. Sitting. Sitting still can be hard for all kids. Everyone, everyone and adults. Everyone and adults and as you know, I've heard, I've said before that kids learn best through play. So sitting and listening it can be really tough or sitting and reading can be really tough. That scheduled movement can help all children having those fidgets and I'll put it down so you don't hear it on the podcast anymore. Those fidgets can help many of us who might need something to do with their hands. Yes. You know, positive reinforcement, breaks, snacks. We cannot we cannot, you know, underestimate the the value of that. Absolutely It's true that, you know, the things that we're talking about that really help kids focus and learn are good for all kids. And, you know, in fact, one of the best things you can do for your brain is exercise and movement. So, you know, again, brain research because we have advances, 30 minutes of aerobic exercise causes your hippocampus to create new cells. And that's the part of the brain that transfers memory from short-term memory to long-term memory. So, you know, being able to exercise is so, you know, it's good for your body but it's good for your brain too. Rght. Absolutely. I love the brain science when we pull in things there. It's great. So we kind of mentioned helping children get organized. Those checklists. Those breaks. The one thing that we didn't talk about specifically was using, audiobooks. Audiobooks, so, one thing that is important to think about is what is the purpose of the assignment? So in, you know, with older kids, when they're being asked to understand a story and, like, analyze it or look at, like, character motivations, it's okay to do audiobooks. That task isn't about decoding. It's about understanding and making connections and doing critical thinking. So then do an audiobook. That's fine. Audiobooks count as reading. Right. I wish when I was in high school, I had, I knew about audiobooks like I thought reading was reading. Right. You have to use your eyeballs to read it. And I would have understood, oh gosh, all of those books I remember in 10th grade. Specifically, you know, Lord of the Flies, those sorts of books. Yeah, yeah, I think they would have digested better had I had I have listened to them rather than. Or think about we were just talking about exercise, being able to like walk and listen to a book. Yes. Right. For some folks would be really helpful. So, you know, definitely, use those tools that are out there. And it still counts. I hear adults all the time say, well, I listen to audiobooks. It counts. Right? It does. Does that count as reading? Yeah. No literally the expert says it counts. So it counts. You're taking in the information that's the important part. Right? Absolutely. So, the other piece is you talked a little bit about break snacks, that positive reinforcement, right? Using positive reinforcement for the effort, maybe not the achievement, but that growth mindset that we're in, we're encouraging them. Wow. You did a really good job getting through that one book that we're going through or, you know, those sorts of things. So, looking at that, that effort, praising the effort, encouraging them that way. Yeah, definitely. We're always we always want to be talking about the effort. Yes. Like you work so hard on that. You know, you sat down, and you really focused. That's the thing that helps with that growth mindset. Rather than just saying, oh yeah, you're good reader. That can feel like, well, some people are just naturally good. The other thing that I tried to implement, especially with my niece and nephew, is you should be so proud of yourself, like for getting that, you know, making that effort. Right. That sort of thing. So all really helpful strategies in how parents can engage in continued reading efforts. But what point should, if, you know, you get to this point, you talked a little bit about parents saying, well, I tried all those things. What point, maybe, should parents seek additional support outside of the home? Yeah. So if you are at the point where it's a frustration that is really impacting everything, and, you know, or your child's reluctant to go to school, you know, is a big is a big one that can happen. You know, do bring that concern to the school or to your doctor? You know, sometimes, you know, people are in all different communities, and schools really do want to be helpful and work together with parents. And sometimes, parents feel like they need outside support. So you can definitely check in with your physician pediatrician. You know, there are people, child psychologist and specialist, who work with kids with learning difficulties. And you can definitely seek out. I would say, you know, it's always been my experience that parents know when something isn't going well. And, usually when they, and they might know that before the school because they're the, you know, they're the person that knows their child the best. Right. Absolutely. So, you know, you are the person that can continue to reach out. And, if people say, oh, I don't now, you know, just keep pushing for an assessment. There's assessments that the school can do. Even with really young children, often we see, as we mentioned, hearing. So you can get a hearing screening from the early childhood services. So, just always keep asking. And you can find those, you know, in your area what are the what are the services you have access to. Right. Yeah. And talking to the school, typically, they know what those resources are as well. So connect you with them. All right. So, talking about connecting, I feel like this is one my lead in for this section every single time. But we love our community. And I love my resources, including extension. So we're going to bring in my extension resource. Hailey. Do you do you just really appreciate how every time I'm like, hey, this is my, my attempt at making a transition. I love it. We do what we can around here, right? So welcome, Hailey. Hailey, this is our Stop. Breathe. Talk. time. I don't think I mentioned that, so Stop. Breathe. Talk.. It is based on our flagship parenting strategy to stop, take a breath and make with intention or interactions with, you know, usually we talk about it with our children, but this is also our chance to speak with the intention, with our colleagues. So Hailey, our colleague who is also a parenting educator, do you have a question for us today? I do, everything you've already mentioned has been super helpful. So thank you. And I'm definitely going to be trying out those audiobooks for me and for my kids. You know, something I can do while we're on a drive or while I'm on a walk. So thank you for that reminder, by the way. Absolutely. But one thing that I know is really important within the science of parenting is parents having those resources that they really need at their fingertips when they need it the most. Right. So, I want to know if you have any recommendations about additional resources for parents that need that extra support or just don't really know where to even begin? Yes. This is a really good question because as you know, there's all kinds of stuff on the internet. So, let me tell you some websites that I know are, you know, backed by research and evidence. So, one that comes top of mind is the National Center for Learning Disabilities. So it's NCLD.org. They have information about all different kinds of aspects. Things specifically for parents around advocacy and even, you know, things about like what is dyslexia, if you want to dive more deeply into what is that. As you mentioned, audiobooks, there is an online library called Bookshare where there's lots of audiobooks, and it still has the print that goes across. So one thing we didn't say, though, about audiobooks is if you're if you are listening with a computer, sometimes they have books where the print is also going while the audio is going. So, in a similar way that closed captioning helps you, you know, learn to read, so that can help with reading skills. The International Dyslexia Association is a really great resource for parents, and it's an advocacy organization. I gotta say for cutting-edge research, the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, you know, has things for parents and teachers and adults, like individuals with dyslexia. In Iowa specifically, and then other states, we have this group that's called Decoding Dyslexia. And so they're very active in Iowa. I think their website is just decodingdyslexiaIowa.org. You know, they've gotten some legislation passed. So finding a local group can help you find even, like a support group, you know, other parents who are, in your area that can share tips. You know, just like with everything, when you can find a group of parents that are going to the same thing you're going through, you know, that just makes it so much easier. That's a really good idea, having, you know, just those people experiencing similar realities to what you're you're going through is a game changer, for sure. Absolutely. Well, those resources are invaluable, and it's a great reminder to look to those outside sources as well. But thank you, Hailey, for joining us. Always getting us thinking about different things that maybe we hadn't brought up yet. But that brings us to our end. So, to summarize, we've learned about understanding dyslexia, creating a supportive environment, using practical strategies, that's always a big thing that we are here for. Advocating for your child and finding valuable resources. So, thanks for joining us today at the Science of Parenting Podcast. Remember, shameless plug 2.0, we do have that awesome backlog of podcasts for you to further explore if you're wanting more when you're done with this one. So come along as we tackle the ups and downs, the ins and outs, and the research and reality all around The Science of Parenting. The Science of Parenting is a research-based education program hosted by Mackenzie DeJong-Schelling, produced and edited by Brock Beirman, with contributions from Barbara Dunn-Swanson, Dr. Connie Beecher, Hailey Walker, and Morgan Newell. Send in questions and comments to parenting@iastate.edu and connect with us on Facebook. This program is brought to you by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.