Why do children struggle with reading?

The most common reading disability is "dyslexia."  Many school psychologists are taught to not use this word, since it does cover a range of slightly different problems.  However, in most cases the "cure" is the same - systematic, multi-sensory phonics and phonemic awareness training.

Dyslexia starts in the brain.  The most common problem is that the child's brain does not process the various sounds in a word as individual sounds, but rather hears it instead as one burst of sound.  This is because it really is one blast of sound.  The word "kind" is one blast of sound - but most of people's brains can separate this word into four separate sounds: /k/ /long-i/ /n/ /d/.

Fortunately, once it is discovered that a child has this problem, there are specific exercises and instruction that has been proven to help nearly all of these children become successful readers - ESPECIALLY IF THE INTERVENTION IS DONE QUICKLY WHILE THEY ARE STILL YOUNG!

The Barton Reading System, which we use, is one instructional system that provides systematic phonics instruction in a multi-sensory manner.  You can learn more about it by selecting the menu item on the left.