Every child learns at their own pace, so some children learn to read faster than others. But this doesn’t mean that parents should sit back and wait for their kids to catch up with their peers. If your 7 year old is struggling with reading, it’s important to ensure they are getting the help they need right away. Reading skills are crucial to your child’s academic success, so the sooner they can improve these skills, the better.

What Should A 7 Year Old Be Able to Read?

There are certain reading milestones that your child should reach at every age. Some of the important reading milestones that your child should hit by age 7 include:

• Understand the basic rules of phonics, such as the difference between short and long vowels, the way the sounds of consonants blend together, and how the silent ‘e’ is used at the end of words.
• Self-monitor their comprehension so they can identify when they don’t understand something they are reading.
• Use context clues to extract meaning from the text or figure out what unfamiliar words mean.
• Have a broad sight word vocabulary, which are words that your child recognizes by sight alone.
• Correctly read approximately 60 words per minute.

If your child has not developed these skills, now is the time to help them become the strong reader they were born to be.

What Are the Signs of A Reading Problem?

Parents may not immediately notice that their child is struggling to read. This is because the signs of a reading problem are not always obvious. Here are some of the signs you should look out for:

• Your child’s reading is choppy and uneven rather than smooth.
• Your child recognizes a word by sight on one page but does not recognize the same word by sight on a different page.
• Your child guesses what unfamiliar words are instead of trying to sound them out using their knowledge of letters and sounds.
• Your child does not pay attention to punctuation when reading out loud.
• Your child does not seem to comprehend what they are reading.
• Your child skips over words when reading or reads words in a sentence out of order.

If you spot any of these signs, it’s likely that your child is struggling to read at grade level. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways for parents to help their children overcome reading difficulties.

How Can I Improve My Child’s Reading Level At Home?

Here are some of the many ways that you can help your 7 year old child improve their reading skills at home:

• Buy letter magnets and use them to help your child build different words. This is a great way to help your child improve their sight vocabulary and gain a deeper understanding of how the sounds of consonants blend together to create words.
  
• Encourage your children to re-read their favorite stories and poems. Re-reading stories they are familiar with will help them improve their fluency.
  
• Pick the right books. You shouldn’t pressure your child to read books that are above their grade level. They may struggle with books that are too advanced, which can leave them feeling frustrated and hopeless. You should also choose books that interest your child, which will motivate them to keep reading.
  
• Help your child understand sections of text that they are struggling to read. Point out context clues that they may have missed, grab a dictionary to look up words they aren’t familiar with, and help them sound out difficult words. Make it a team effort!
  
• Read books out loud together. You may need to slow down a bit to match your child’s pace, but don’t go too slow. Challenge your child to try to keep up with your pace and match your expression.

Practice makes perfect. The more time you can spend helping your child, the faster they will be able to improve their reading skills.

What is the Best Way to Teach A Child to Read?

Supplement your at-home reading instruction with Readability, which is the only reading comprehension app that your child can use anytime, anywhere. This app is designed with responsive speech technology, which allows it to listen to your child read aloud and correct their pronunciation errors in real time. The app will also ask questions and listen to your child’s answers to ensure they understand the text they are reading. Together, these features can drastically improve your child’s decoding, phonetic awareness, and reading comprehension skills.

Help your 7 year old become a better reader with Readability. Download the app on your smartphone or tablet to start your free 7-day trial today.