Chapter 4 of 6
When They Get Stuck
A five-second pause does more than a correction.
6 min read
Wait longer than feels comfortable
When a child stalls on a word, most adults supply it within two seconds. Count to five instead. Much of reading is a slow assembly the child can finish alone if the room stays quiet.
The ladder of help
Give the smallest help that works, in this order:
- Wait. Five silent seconds.
- Point. Tap the first letter or the first chunk.
- Sound the chunk. Say the first part, not the whole word.
- Give the word. Then reread the whole sentence together so the meaning closes.
Never end on the error
If a sentence was hard, read it once more, fluently, together. Children remember the last version they produced. Leaving a sentence broken teaches that reading is a series of failures; rereading it smoothly teaches that difficulty resolves.
What to do about guessing
Guessing from the picture is a strategy, not a crime, but it should not be the only one. If the guess is wrong, say: "That would make sense — check the letters." You have now praised the meaning-making and redirected the method.
Practice exercises
0 of 3 complete1.A child stalls on a word. What comes first?
2.After a hard sentence, you should…
3.Your child guesses a word from the picture and gets it wrong. Write, word for word, what you would say.