My second grader is behind in reading

Find the hard step

What second grade reading usually looks like

The National Center on Improving Literacy describes a typical reader from second grade on like this: they sound out new words on their own, break long words into parts, read smoothly and understand what they read, and spell common words correctly.¹

If that is not your child yet, it does not tell you why. Children differ, and classes differ. The useful question is not “how far behind?” It is “which step?”

What “behind” means, step by step

These are the steps on our reading path, in order. Each one stands on the one before it. Read down the list and stop at the first line that sounds like your child.

1. Hearing the sounds in a wordCannot tell you the first sound of “sun,” or cannot say which words rhyme. There is a free check for this step.
2. The letter soundsKnows the letter names but not the sounds, or learns a sound and loses it by the next day. There is a free check for this step.
3. Short words with three soundsSays the sounds of “map” one by one, and no word comes. Or guesses from the first letter. There is a free check for this step.
4. Words with four and five soundsReads “cat” but drops a sound in “stop,” “hand” or “jump.”
5. Letter teamsReads “s” and “h” as two sounds in “ship.” The teams sh, ch and th are not known as one sound.
6. Long vowelsReads “cap” and “hop,” but stumbles on “cape,” “hope,” “rain” and “boat.” There is a free check for this step. Its 10-day plan is Cap to Cape.
7. More vowel soundsStumbles on words such as “car,” “corn,” “out” and “coin.”
8. Longer wordsReads one-beat words, but stops at “rabbit,” “sunset” or “jumping.”
9. Reading with easeGets the words right, but one word at a time, so the sentence is lost. There is a free check for this step.

Some troubles sit beside the steps and can show up at any of them: guessing at words, common words that will not stay, mixing up b and d, and reading without taking it in. Each has a free check.

Why start at the hard step, and not at the grade

A second grade page asks for all the steps at once. If step three is shaky, your child cannot do step eight. They can only guess, and guessing looks like reading until the words get long.

So more second grade work does not help. Going back does. It can feel like going backwards. But then the next steps have something to stand on.

What to do this week

1. Find the step.Do the free 2-minute finder. It shows the one thing to work on first, and what can wait.
2. Do the free check for that step.About three minutes, with your child. It ends with what to do tonight.
3. Practice there, a few minutes a day.Use words your child can sound out with the steps they already know. Start each day with yesterday’s words.
4. Keep reading aloud to your child.Books at their age, read by you. The stories and the new words keep coming while the reading catches up.
5. Tell the teacher.Say which step you found, and ask what the school’s reading checks have shown.

What we cover, and what we do not

Worried it may be more than a missed step? Tell the teacher. You can ask the school to evaluate your child.

1. Signs of Dyslexia by Age, a chart from the National Center on Improving Literacy. Its “typical development” column for second grade is what we describe above. improvingliteracy.org