What Can Parents Do To Encourage Struggling Readers

What Can Parents Do To Encourage Struggling Readers 

In our last blog post, we spoke about struggling readers and how teachers can motivate and encourage them in the classroom. Now, let’s shift to parents and what they can do at home to encourage and motivate struggling readers. 

Reading success requires effort and diligence from three parties: the teacher, the student and the parent. It is important that each party knows their role in the child’s reading journey and are able to perform the tasks specific to them. So, how can parents motivate and encourage struggling readers at home? 

1. Be supportive and encourage them to read daily. Something as simple as encouraging them to keep reading or having them read a page a day for you serves as encouragement to keep trying. This also shows the student that you care and you are supportive of their reading journey. 

2. Provide incentives. Reading, especially for struggling readers, can be a difficult and arduous task. Provide incentives to encourage them to read by setting up a reward system or otherwise. An example of this looks like, ‘’Okay, let’s read for 30 minutes and then you can have a 30-minute break to watch your favourite television show or play a game on your device’. This gives them a reward to look forward to and will motivate/encourage them to read the assigned paragraph/page/book. 

3. Take Breaks. Taking breaks in and between can work wonders for struggling readers. Pay attention to when your child shows signs of becoming overwhelmed and encourage them to take a break, breathe in and out, take a walk and then go again. This approach can make reading seem less daunting and easier to accomplish as it is done in parts and not at all once. It can also make the text seem like less to the struggling reader as they’ll be attempting it in portions. 

4. Make it fun. We all want to have fun, so incorporating fun into reading will encourage your struggling reader. We have posted blog articles before about ways to make reading fun. One common way to do so is to encourage role-play. A simple towel can be a cape in a story about superheroes and a brush can be a wand. Additionally, character voices can be included; the deep and booming voice of the troll under the bridge, the roar of the lion and the sweet and soft voice of the dear princess. These minor additions can make the reading passage seem more interesting, thus encouraging your struggling reader to complete the assigned text. 

While there are many others, these are just a few ways to encourage and motivate your struggling reader at home. Feel free to try any of these methods and let us know how they’ve worked for your little reader. 

At The Caribbean Academy for Reading Intervention and Development, we offer an Individual Reading Assistance Program that assists struggling readers to build skills in: 

• Sight words and high-frequency words 

• Sounds recognition 

• Reading comprehension 

• Letter and word recognition 

• Phonics and phonemic awareness 

Our Reading Assistance Programme is designed to teach the foundational skills of reading to children with significant academic challenges, empowering them to achieve grade-level proficiency. Our dedicated tutors help struggling readers understand the basic mechanics of reading and help them develop critical reading skills that will help them develop a lifelong love of reading. 

Target Audience: Struggling readers between the ages of 5 years to 10 years. 

Persons interested in our Individual Reading Assistance Program can contact us at 1-868-474-9819. 

Chrystal Murray has a passion for imparting knowledge and adding value to the lives of others.

She has been an educator for over 14 years. She holds a B.A. Degree in History and Education from the University of the West Indies (UWI). She also possesses several professional certificates in Understanding Dyslexia, Successful Educational Strategies for Children with Special Needs, and Supporting Multiple Abilities through Differentiation just to name a few. She is also certified in Counselling Youth and Children and Parenting the Adolescent. Chrystal is the Founder and Principal of two academic institutions, the Caribbean Ivy League Academy and the Caribbean Academy for Reading Intervention and Development. She founded the Caribbean Academy for Reading Intervention and Development where she works assiduously with children who have reading challenges. She also uses this platform to motivate, inspire and help build confidence in the children who are in her care.

Chrystal Murray 

Reading Interventionist 

1-868-474-9819