Reading Difficulties
Many people struggle with reading. There are a wide range of reading difficulties from those who are diagnosed with a reading disability such as dyslexia or learning disability to those who are just lagging behind and could benefit from some focused reading assistance.
Reading difficulties can seriously impact a child’s performance in school and if persisting into adulthood, can also cause difficulties in the workplace. Reading difficulties are best addressed when caught at a young age.
Signs of reading difficulty include:
- Difficulty pronouncing/sounding out words
- Trouble understanding/remembering what was read
- Slow rate when reading aloud
- Ignoring punctuation when reading
- No expression/intonation when reading
- Confusing letters
Reading performance can be impacted by impairments in many different areas including:
- Decoding
- Vocabulary
- Reading fluency
- Comprehension
- Inferencing
- Attention
- Memory
A Speech-Language Pathologist can help determine where in the reading process the trouble is occurring and then provide targeted help to build skills in these areas as well as coordinating with the school/teacher to accommodate the student’s weaknesses or build on their strengths.