Reading Problems in Children

Reading and learning are the two things that determine the success of a child during his school career. First he learns to read. Then he reads to learn. Reading is therefore of paramount importance in the educational process.

Unfortunately reading problems in children, and therefore poor learning skills, is a reality for an alarming number of children.

To understand what causes reading problems in children, one must first understand that learning is a stratified process. This means that certain skills and knowledge must be acquired first, before it becomes possible to learn subsequent skills and knowledge. An example should make this clear. Suppose there was a child who has not yet learned to count. It would be quite impossible to teach such a child to add, subtract, multiply, or divide. This would only become possible after the child has leaned to count. This suggests that counting is a lower-lying skill than calculating, and that mastery of a lower-lying or foundational skill is a prerequisite for mastering any higher-lying skill.

In the same way there are also skills that form the basis or foundation of skills like reading. If a child has not adequately mastered the foundational skills of reading, he would be a very poor reader, and there would be no way in which he could be turned into a better reader other than by first practicing and developing these foundational skills of reading.

RESOURCE:

Audiblox: Home Help for Reading Problems
Effective in overcoming reading problems in children.