It is important to note that the struggles that occur in the early years are the most essential for success as a reader in the later years. Do not take on the mindset that your child will some how sort themselves out as they get older, this may be the case for some students but not all. 

Fluency is mastered when students can read with accuracy, proper expression and with speed. Fluency is a fundamental reading skill students should be developing between grades 1 - 5, by grade 6 students should have fully mastered this ability and be reading text smoothly in phases and adding intonation accurately. Fluency is critical to student motivation as they progress through their schooling the requirement for reading aloud increases and the ability to understand what is being read is essential. 

How you can help:

• Read aloud to your child first giving an example of expression and fluency
• Give your child a chance, first to decode the words then once that is mastered reread the page to gain accuracy and speed.
• Use online books that have a read aloud option where your child is able to follow along via the print. 
• Point out the punctuation whilst your child is reading to help make meaning.

Decoding is the ability to recognise the speech sounds of a word to be able to pronounce that word. This ability is tricky when students are pronouncing words letter by letter as words are not written by each letter sound, a good example of this is trying to write the word was as a teacher I have seen this written many times as WOZ which is great in terms of 'sounding it out' . We need students decoding words based on the letter sound blends that are related to that word. THRASS is an excellent literacy program which is focused on teaching students the speech sounds within a word for not only decoding skills but spelling also.

How you can help:

• When your child gets stuck on a word break that word up into it's speech sounds for example sh/ow the s and h in show are making sh sound and the o and w are making the ow sound in show. 
• Laminate flash cards with the words you are focusing on with your child to decode and cut them into their speech sounds for your child to put together, in the younger years a picture to go with the word is also a great visual to help with memory. 
• Motivate your child to want to read but picking their own books, in my experience it is best to go down to the library and pick a selection of books you think would be at your child's level and allow your child to pick; this eliminates situations that can come about when your five year old chooses 'Harry Potter' to read.

Phonic knowledge refers to a students ability to make connections with the 44 phonemes in the English language by identifying specific lets and letter-groups that represent a phoneme. THRASS teaches phoneme awareness systematically it teaches directly the skill of being able to instantly recognise familiar letter groups, rather than trying to recognise a whole word. This is an essential skill for not only reading but spelling also and is very handy in the latter years as independent reading becomes more important and frequent. 

Students representing difficulties in reading usually show lower levels of phonic knowledge and struggle with making connections with identifying the spelling choice for the speech sound within a word. 

How you can help:

• Speak to your child's classroom teacher about additional support the school can give with small group instruction to help practice this skill.
• Identify the speech sounds in a word and break up the word by letter in that sound for example wh/a/t what spelling choices do we make for each speech sound in the word what?
• Use flash cards with word families to help your child identify spelling choices used for the same speech sound.

Use the THRASS app to help with spelling choices.

I have saved comprehension for last as I believe it is critical when it comes to difficulty in reading, let me explain why; if your child is able to fluently read a page of 'Harry Potter' smoothly, and with expression, but at the end of that page can not retell anything that has happened; or is unable to meaningfully summarise what they have read, then what good is the skill of reading. The purpose of reading is to understand, and that fundamental point is often a huge oversight to many parents and often teachers, we need to teach reading to make meaning as once they understand they can then apply the knowledge. 

Because of a lack of comprehension in reading students can make statements like "I hate reading", "I'm no good at reading", "this book is so stupid" and so on. It is not uncommon to want to give up on something you can't understand, as adults imagine reading through a legal document without a lawyer present, well this is the same way a child might feel about a book they are reading. Comprehension is directly related to a students vocabulary and their knowledge of meanings of words. If students have the ability to properly understand what they have read they can then think deeply about what the author is saying. 

How you can help:

• You can quiz your child on what they have read after a page of a novel or after they have finished a short book in the younger years
• Once you have determined if they have understood what they have read you can then spot check them by asking them what a words definition is on the page they just read.
• Have your child look up the definition in an age appropriate dictionary with your help and read the meaning, then look up the derivation of that word (the origin of the word) we do this to help students add more meaning to a word and better remember it. Then have your child use the word in 2-4 sentences until they can easily put the word into a sentence (this shows they can now apply the word they have learnt).
• Once you have spot checked your child on what they have read and have finished defining all words that you believe they are struggling with have them reread the text, then ask them the comprehension questions again. 
• If you find there are too many words on a page or within a short book for your child you need to go back a step and have your child choose a book with word choices more suited to your child's current ability. It is destructive to try and force a child to read a book beyond their years of comprehension and can cause many issues in terms of willingness to read.