How Do I Help My Child Who Isn't Ready for Primary School?

It's always a concern when parents come to us with primary one students who don't know how to read. Fortunately, there is no need to panic. Take a deep breath and keep reading. 

The first thing that any parent should consider is have their child do an assessment. From there you can find out what kind of challenges face your little one; whether that is neurological, developmental or possibly environmental. A proper assessment will get to the root of your child's difficulty.

After that, there are a few venues to travel down. You should consider if the child has difficulties with meta-cognitive ability related to sound processing in the brain. If your child has difficulty with understanding that the sounds of a word make that word, then they probably need to began fundamental training skills in phonology.

The second possibility may be that they have not mastered phonetics and so make too many errors which undermine their confidence. From that point they would only fall further behind their peers. In that case, a systematic approach to reading to develop their ability would be a good choice.

Lastly, they may not be comfortable or happy reading in front of others or they are not confident enough. At this juncture, it's about finding the right environment and teacher that makes the child feel comfortable and confident.

If the child can read, make sure they are attempting to read books that are suitable for them.(Not ones that just look good.)

Finally, make sure the books have a balance between good imagery and words that relate to that imagery. This will help build their visual vocabulary and you should see much better progress.

If you have any other questions, please send us a message on our facebook page (here) or through our contact page (here). We'd love to hear from you. 

Sincerely,
I Know English Team