Teaching struggling readers is not an easy task. Readers may struggle for any number of reasons including lack of practice and reading difficulties caused by problems beyond their control. With continued hard work and practice, struggling readers can improve and become better readers.

By beginning to learn how to read early in life, children are able to build the confidence they need in order to become stronger readers. With good reading skills in hand, they will have the self-confidence to help them succeed in life with more than just reading. Success in school, success in employment, success for life; all due to success in reading.

One of the best things to do when teaching struggling readers is to start having them read aloud, slowly. By reading out loud they will be able to sound out the words better and can hear how the words sound. This will help with the word recognition as well as their ability to sound things out. Although it may be embarrassing at first, and should be done in private, reading out loud can make a huge difference in teaching struggling readers and is one of the best practices to be used with all of them.

Teaching struggling readers, as pointed out previously, is not an easy task. Especially if the reader is extremely frustrated due to years of having difficulties and no longer feels like working on the problem. Then patience, patience, and more patience will be required in order for any progress to be made.

Scholastic Teacher Store offers resources for teaching struggling readers http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/read180/ as well as help for math interventions. Billings Farnsworth is a freelance writer.