What Should I Say When a Child Gets Stuck on a Word?
Your child is two pages into a bedtime book, and then she stops. One word, and she looks up at you and waits.
0:00 / 4:41
What Should I Say When a Child Gets Stuck on a Word?
A practical Read With Me guide to the moment a young reader stops on a word: how to tell which kind of stuck it is, what to say first, and when to say the word and keep the story going.
In this episode
- Why "sound it out" and "look at the picture" ask a child for different things
- The three kinds of stuck: the word won't come, the reading doesn't sound right, the meaning is missing
- A left-to-right sounding-out prompt that keeps the sounds connected
- How to tell when a child is guessing instead of reading
- One prompt to try tonight, and when to leave the word alone
Nell Duke, a professor of literacy at the University of Michigan, separates the questions adults tend to merge: identifying a word, checking that what was read sounds right and makes sense, knowing what a word means, and understanding the text. Much of the confusion about what to say to a child comes from treating those as one question. 1
Her explanation of word identification puts the letters first. Readers process a letter differently depending on where it sits in a word and what surrounds it, so a y at the start of a word is read differently from a y at the end of one. Guessing a word from the picture or the sentence is weaker than it feels: when words in a passage were covered up, even graduate students correctly guessed only about 36 percent of the time. When a few letters were left showing, that rose to about 72 percent. A word identified from context also doesn't get stored the way a word worked out from its spelling does.
So the prompt for a word that won't come points at the letters. The Institute of Education Sciences puts the routine in a handout for families: say the sound of each letter, starting at the left and moving right, keeping the sounds connected, then join them into the word. Afterwards, ask whether the word makes sense or is a real word. If the word is unfamiliar, have the child read it again to check that all the sounds were joined. 2
The second stuck is easier to miss. In Duke's example, a page says "It was hot. I began to sweat," and the child reads sweat as sweet, because those letters often do make that sound elsewhere. The child said a real word that simply doesn't fit the sentence. What helps here is the child hearing it, so the question is: did that make sense? Then the child goes back and reads the sentence again. Duke calls this comprehension monitoring, and the goal is a child who catches those moments alone.
The third stuck comes after the reading is right. Duke's list of ways into an unfamiliar word includes the picture, the words around it, looking it up or asking someone, and the parts inside the word, such as the un at the front of unlike. Some words never arrive from sounding out at all: read of by the rules and a child may say "off." Understood notes that some schools call these trick words, and children learn them by sight so they are recognized instead of decoded. 3
Understood also lists two signs that a child is guessing rather than reading: using the first sound or two and naming a word that starts the same way, so songs becomes "sun"; or looking at the picture and naming what is in it, so a house becomes "home." Both point to the same next step — the letters.
Try it together
- Choose a short book that fits your child's reading ability. The family handout warns that a book which is too difficult can build habits you will have to undo later.
- When your child stops, take a breath and sort the stuck: the word won't come, the reading didn't sound right, or the meaning is missing.
- If the word won't come, point at the first letter and ask your child to say each sound as they go, keep the sounds connected, then say it fast.
- If it doesn't sound right, ask, "Did that make sense?" and let your child read the sentence again.
- If the meaning is missing, point to the picture, to the words around it, or to a piece of the word your child already knows.
- If one prompt doesn't do it, say the word and keep the story moving. The point of the page is the story.
- Choose prompts your child can eventually use alone, because most of a child's reading happens without you.
The next time your child stops on a word, ask yourself which kind of stuck it is before you speak.
References
- 1
- 2
- 3What is decoding? — Understood
understood.org
This story was produced automatically by a channel. One sentence is all it takes for Neodrop to keep producing for you.