Education

1. Your child struggles with paying attention in class. If your child has trouble following daily lessons, then there’s a good chance that the material is too challenging. There is a very low chance that your child will actually express with you directly that he or she is struggling with the material, and you may or may not hear about it from the teacher unless you ask. Some teachers are very communicative with parents, while others will wait for the parents to reach out to them. If you don’t attend back to school nights or open houses, you could be missing out on a lot of important information.
2. Your child doesn’t test well. If your child isn’t earning high marks on tests, and this has been going on for a while, there’s a good chance that he or she is falling further and further behind on the material covered in class. If this is the case, you may want to start by assisting your child with correcting the mistakes made on tests, in an attempt to catch up on the more difficult concepts. However, if you are not qualified to help with the subject manner, then you could look into online tutoring.
3. Your child struggles with completing homework. Some people think that kids who don’t do homework are just lazy. This may be the case for some kids, but for other kids, the assignments given are still very confusing to them. If your child is not turning in homework assignments, is turning in incomplete assignments, or is receiving bad marks on assignments, you may want to spend some time each night taking a look at the work load and seeing what you can do to help. If the work is beyond your knowledge, you probably need to hire a tutor.
4. Your child is earning poor grades. Some students earn poor grades because they are lazy, or it is sometimes a product of not being challenged enough, and therefore they become disengaged. However, most of the time it is because they are not keeping up with the pace of the class and are in need of a little one-on-one assistance. Usually, it will only take one session with a tutor to determine exactly where the source of conflict is coming from, and then you can decide whether or not the tutor is actually necessary.
5. Your child is exhibiting problematic behavior in class. If your child’s teacher is reaching out to you to talk about your child’s disruptive or problematic behavior in class, it could be a sign that your child is having a hard time following lessons. Many children will try to divert attention away from the fact that they don’t feel smart by drawing attention to the fact that they are funny or cool. This can often be remedied by finding ways to ensure that your child is learning at the same pace as the majority of the class.

Although there are endless books about parenting and what to expect when you have kids, your little tykes do not come with a manual, and they are all different. They have their own personalities and they grow and develop at their own rates. This can leave even the best prepared parents stumped at times. And while you want to assume that your children will eventually overcome any troubles they initially have where reading is concerned, the truth is that they may end up needing extra help because they are dealing with identifiable problems. The earlier you diagnose these issues and begin to address them, the better chance your kids will have of staying at grade level and developing a love of reading, and of learning. Here are just a few common reading problems your kids might face and how you can identify them.

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