A learner may be struggling to read if he or she displays one or more of the following:

• Sounding out every word on the page, even if the word or words have already been read to them.

• Doesn’t know the sounds resembling the letters.

• Oral reading is not fluent and smooth.

• Words are read in the wrong order.

• Experiences a problem with consistency in terms of recognizing a word on one page, but not on a next page.

• Substitutes similar-looking words, such as house for horse.

• Guesses words instead of sounding them out.

• Lacking the proper skill to sound out unfamiliar words.

• Pays no attention to punctuation when reading.

• Loses place on the page, skips lines or rereads lines.

• Inserts extra letters in a word when reading. For example, may read tail as trail.

• Misreading words which often have the same beginning and ending letter.

• Improvising by making up part of the story based on the illustrations or context clues instead of reading the actual words.

• Skips words.

• Struggles to understand what has been read.