Many new readers might struggle with reading at first. Reading is not a skill that comes naturally for a lot of students. However, your child can overcome their reading struggles by using the right tools and support. Using an online reading helper is the best way to help a struggling reader because it is a great learning tool that your child is probably already familiar with and enjoys using.

Children today are not only learning math and reading in school, but they are also learning how to use technology. Many schools are incorporating technology into their curriculum.

In fact, your child might be more of a tech expert than you are! The benefits of using technology as a tool for learning are the reason why so many educators want to incorporate them into the classroom.

You can also use technology as a way to help your child continue their learning at home especially for improving their reading skills. 

1.  Sneaking in learning 

Often, the last thing that kids want to do when they get home from school is to keep on doing schoolwork. A great way to get a resistant reader to keep on learning is to sneak it in.

An online reading helper is often designed to be interactive and game-like. This makes learning fun and more like a video game than an extension of school. Your child can continue to learn to read without even knowing it. 

2.  Practice makes perfect 

Getting a lot of practice is important for struggling readers who want to improve. The average child needs between four and 14 exposures to learn a new word.

Without practice, your child will likely always struggle to learn to read independently. An online reading helper can provide them a wide variety of ways to practice their reading skills, so they will never get bored.

If your child is not receptive to the types of reading activities being done at school, you can supplement their learning by using an online reading tool such as an app to help them get a different kind of learning experience that might benefit them more.

3.  Phonemic awareness

For new readers, phonemic awareness is essential for learning new words, building vocabulary, and improving fluency. As your child learns how letters and sounds come together to form words, they are able to recognize and learn words more quickly in texts.

An online reading helper with speech recognition technology, such as Readability, can help your child learn the relationships between specific letters and sounds.

Readability specifically helps with phonemic awareness by listening to your child as they read aloud and gives them immediate error correction when they pronounce a word incorrectly.  

4.  Reading comprehension 

Reading comprehension is one of the main reading goals for new readers, but it is also one of the most difficult. Reading comprehension is basically being able to understand what a text or what the author is trying to say.

Reading comprehension is a difficult reading skill to master because it relies so heavily on other skills:

•  phonemic awareness
•  vocabulary building
• fluency

Struggling readers could benefit from using an online reading helper to improve their reading comprehension. Online reading helpers can provide different techniques and strategies from what is being taught in class to help improve reading comprehension.

For example, Readability actually uses innovative Interactive Voice based Questions & Answers which asks your child questions about the story they just read. This type of review can help your child gauge their comprehension of the story and helps them use their critical thinking to understand what they just read.

5.  Personalized learning  

A big benefit of using an online reading helper is that it provides personalized learning for your child. Many of these online reading helpers have an initial diagnostic exercise to check where your child’s reading level is and then provide materials based on that diagnostic.

Your online reading helper can provide a more personalized learning experience for your child, which is something they likely are not able to get regularly at school. 

6.  Available 24/7

 The main benefit that an online reading helper can provide for your struggling reader is that it is available 24/7. Using an app version of an online reading helper can allow your child to access help or practice whenever and wherever they want. They are a portable and accessible way to learn at the pace that they want and need.

This is especially useful during summer or winter breaks when your child is not in school. Even while on vacation, they can keep on improving their reading!

An online reading helper is a great tool to use for struggling or reluctant readers. They can make reading fun and interactive. Your child will actually learn and enjoy reading!

Using a tool like Readability can help them improve various reading skills at one time such as phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension. You can give Readability a try through their free trial and you will find it is an essential tool to improve your child’s learning.