What to Do When Your Child Is Behind in Reading

Finding out your child is behind in reading is worrying, especially if school reports have been vague. You are far from alone. In the US, the National Assessment Governing Board reported that around 40 percent of 4th graders were working below the NAEP Basic level in reading in 2024, the largest share since 2002.

The good news is that reading problems respond to the right teaching: Reading Rockets notes that most children who struggle can become good readers if they get the right help. The steps below work in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, with notes where the school process differs.

How do you find out how far behind your child is in reading?

Start with the teacher, not the internet. Ask for a meeting and bring examples of your child's work, as Reading Rockets suggests. Then ask three specific questions:

1. 1Which reading skills are behind: sounds, phonics, fluency, vocabulary or comprehension?
2. 2How far behind is my child, compared with what is expected at this grade or year?
3. 3What test or screening is that based on, and can I see the results?

Many schools run reading screeners or benchmark tests during the year. A result such as "reading at an early 2nd grade level in 3rd grade" is far more useful than "needs to read more". If you want a quick first look at home, our free reading test gives one short passage and six comprehension questions for grades 1 to 10, though no short test can show why a child makes a mistake.

Which reading skill is your child missing?

"Behind in reading" can mean very different things, and the fix depends on which skill is weak. The US Institute of Education Sciences practice guide for kindergarten to 3rd grade rates two areas as having strong evidence: teaching children to hear the sounds in spoken words and link them to letters, and teaching them to decode words. It also recommends that every child reads connected text every day.

Many children have more than one gap, and a gap in an early skill can look like a later one. A child who cannot decode will also struggle to understand, so always check the foundations first. Younger children in kindergarten and 1st grade usually need phonics tutoring or practice before anything else.

What should you ask your child's school?

Reading Rockets describes a simple path that works in most schools. Keep in regular touch with the teacher about progress. If progress stalls, ask to meet the principal or a reading specialist about extra classes, services or interventions. If those do not help, ask for a formal evaluation.

Useful questions for that meeting:

• What extra reading support can my child get at school, how often, and in what group size?
• Which program or approach does that support use?
• How will we measure whether it is working, and when will we review it?
• What can I do at home that matches what you are teaching?

Ask for the plan in writing, with a review date six to eight weeks away. That gives everyone a clear point to decide whether the support is enough.

When should you ask for an evaluation?

If your child is not making progress with school support, or you suspect dyslexia or another learning difference, ask sooner rather than later.

• United States. Under the federal special education law, IDEA, you can ask your public school to evaluate your child at any time. The Learning Disabilities Association of America advises making the request in writing to the principal or the district's special education director and keeping copies. The federal timeline is 60 days from when you give consent for the evaluation, though some states set their own, and the US Department of Education has said a school's intervention process cannot be used to delay or deny an evaluation.
• United Kingdom. In England, GOV.UK says to contact the school's SENCO, the special educational needs co-ordinator, if you think your child has special educational needs.
• Canada and Australia. Ask the principal or the school's learning support or special education teacher how assessments work in your province, state or territory.

An evaluation is not a label for its own sake. It tells you and the school exactly what kind of teaching your child needs. If dyslexia is a possibility, read our page on dyslexia reading tutoring.

How can you help your child with reading at home?

Short, regular practice is easier on everyone than long weekend sessions that end in tears. We suggest ten to fifteen minutes a day: it is easier to keep up for months, and keeping it up is what matters.

• Read real text every day. Let your child read aloud from a book at the right level, and help with the hard words.
• Practice the weak skill. Play rhyming and sound games for younger children, use decodable books for phonics gaps, and reread the same short passage three times for fluency.
• Read to your child too. Books above their own reading level build vocabulary and show them why reading is worth the effort.
• Talk about the story. Ask what happened, why a character did something and what might come next.
• Keep it calm. Praise effort, not just accuracy, and stop before your child is exhausted.

If you are not sure what to practice, ask the teacher for one specific skill to work on at home each week.

When does a reading tutor help?

School support may be given in small groups for a limited time each week, which is not always enough to close a big gap. A tutor is worth considering when:

• School support has not closed the gap after a term.
• Your child has started avoiding reading aloud or saying they hate reading.
• The gap is in more than one skill, or your child is two or more grade levels behind.
• You cannot manage daily practice at home, or practice has become a battle.

One-to-one lessons let a tutor start at the exact skill that is missing, rather than the level of the group. For a child who is well behind, we usually suggest two or three lessons a week so progress keeps moving between sessions. TaleemSquare's online reading tutoring works this way, with 45-minute one-to-one lessons that cover phonics, fluency and comprehension. Every reading class also has a female supervisor listening live and is recorded, as our child safety page explains.

How quickly can a child catch up in reading?

There is no honest single answer. It depends on how big the gap is, which skill is missing, how often your child gets targeted help and whether a learning difference such as dyslexia is involved. A small gap in one skill can close much faster than a large gap across several skills.

What you can do is measure. We suggest using the same test or reading passage every six to eight weeks and comparing the results. If the gap is not shrinking, change something: more frequent lessons, a different approach, or an evaluation if you have not had one yet.

What to do next

1. 1Book a meeting with your child's teacher and ask which skills are behind, by how much, and what the school will do.
2. 2Try our free reading test for a quick first look, then book a free 45-minute reading assessment with a tutor to find the exact gap.
3. 3Compare options in our guide to online reading programs for struggling readers, and see plans from $85 a month on our pricing page.