Reasons Why Students Struggle With Decoding: What causes some students to struggle with decoding skills while other students in the same classroom, receiving the same instructions, are able to catch on and develop these skills quickly? Children who have a difficult time mastering the process of decoding may struggle for a variety of reasons. There is not one factor that causes all decoding deficiencies. Unfortunately, teachers and parents may need to examine a few different factors before they can determine why their child is struggling with decoding. A list of factors that may affect decoding development is included below. This list should act as a guide when thinking about why a child may be struggling. If you believe a child is struggling to decode as a result of one of these factors, please access further resources or testing for support.
Poor Phonological Awareness: For decoding to be successful, children must recognize individual letters as well as their associated sound(s) (Chard et al., 2000).The ability to recognize, hear, and work with the sounds of language is known as phonological awareness.Students with strong phonological awareness are able to recognize individual sounds and manipulate the units of language such as words, syllables, and rhymes. They can also identify words with the same beginning, middle, or ending sounds with ease (Reading Rockets, 2018).Problems with phonological awareness arise when students struggle to understand that spoken words are made up of different units of sound. Children who lack phonological awareness cannot recognize the sounds in a spoken word, making decoding nearly impossible (Lyon, 1997).These students are unable to identify and translate individual or groups of letters back into the sounds they represent.If a student cannot orally blend the sounds /h/ /a/ /t/, for example, without the use of print, then he or she is not going to be able to sound out the word in text (Allington, 2011). Phonological awareness is one of the best predictors of success in learning to read (Chard et al., 2000). Struggling decoders require practice and support in developing their phonological awareness. For more information on phonological awareness please visit the website: https://www.readingrockets.org/helping/target/phonologicalphonemic
Language Experiences at Home: Limited access to literacy and language experiences in the home may also contribute to the decoding struggle displayed by many children. Children may struggle with decoding in school simply due to the lack of prior language and literacy experiences (Beck & Jule, 2002; Hart & Risley, 2003). Children who experienced literacy activities, such as reading and sining nursery rhymes, in their home are at an advantage when it comes to vocabulary development, understanding the goals of reading, and developing an awareness of print and literacy concepts. Many students who struggle with decoding have not been consistently engaged in the language play that develops an awareness of sound structure and language patterns (Reading Rockets, 2018).
Overloaded Working Memory: Working Memory (WM) is another factor that may contribute to decoding difficulties for developing readers.WM involves the temporary storage and manipulation of phonological information such as letters and sounds (Squires, 2018).The entire process of decoding, recognizing different letter forms, assigning the correct phonological sound to that form, and remembering the phonological pattern with the new phonemes until they reach the end result or the printed word all rely on WM. “Poor decoders may need to allocate so much of their processing resources to letter-sound associations during word reading that they are left with few resources to blend sounds together and recognize them as a word” (Squires, 2018). When students successfully develop decoding skills, their reading become more fluid and automatic. Students are no longer needing to sound out each individual letter in order to decode a word, they now rely on sight recognition. When students have achieved this automaticity, they have passed the word and letter-sound relationship to long term memory (Sprenger, 2013).To assist struggling decoders, we must find a way to decrease the load on students’ WM.When the load is lightened, students will hopefully have the capacity to transfer both sounds and words to their long term memory.
Vision or Hearing Problems: In order to learn to decode, students must be able to recognize letters and their sounds. If students are struggling to visually recognize a letter they will struggle to produce the correct sound. Similarly, if a child has hearing difficulties they may not be able to hear the correct sound a letter should make. They may not be able to hear you modelling the correct sound or they may not be able to properly hear the sound they are producing. To help identify what is causing a child to struggle with decoding, students should have both their vision and hearing tested.
Attention or Motivation: Reading motivation and poor decoding skills affect one another in the form of a vicious cycle. Reading motivation is negatively affected by poor decoding skills since children (and adults) do not like to spend time and effort on activities they do not feel they are good at (Hart & Risley, 2003). When a student struggles with decoding, they will not be motivated to read or practice developing their decoding skills. These children may feel embarrassed or inadequate when compared to their peers which can lead to feelings of low self-esteem (Lyon, 1997). Educational gaps and a lack of positive experiences with reading will add to the distaste for literacy activities. We cannot expect to create strong decoders if they do not feel internally inspired and motivated to improve their reading and decoding skills.
Genetics and the Brain: Some students may struggle with decoding as a result of their genetics or brain development (Lyon, 1997).Dyslexia is one condition that can affect decoding skills. Children with dyslexia will display poor reading skills such as the inability to decode and difficulty reading accurately and fluently (Gough & Tunmer, 1886). Dyslexia hinders a child’s ability to develop decoding skills. Children will struggle to sound out both real and nonsense words as well as have limited spelling knowledge. This decoding struggle can also be connected to the child’s lack of letter recognition and phonological awareness (Gough & Turnmer, 1986). Children with dyslexia can still become successful decoders (and readers) with early diagnosis and literacy intervention.
References: Allington, Richard L. “What At-Risk Readers Need.” Educational Leadership 68.6 (2011): 40. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 11 Sept. 2011 Beck, I. L., & Juel, C. (2002). The Role of Decoding in Learning to Read. Scholastic Red. Retrieved September 24, 2018, from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/aed9/5c4d2b4ddb11d4199e4ab91ac0ee41fb2219.pdf.Select Cain, K. (2010). Learning to read words. In K. Cain, Reading Development & Difficulties (Ch. 4, pp. 68-80). Toronto: Wiley. Chard, D., Pikulski, J., & Templeton, S. (2000). From phonemic awareness to fluency: Effective decoding instruction in a research-based reading program. Houghton Mifflin Reading. Retrieved from https://www.eduplace.com/state/pdf/author/cahrd_pik_temp.pdf Gough, P., & Tunmer, W. (1986). Decoding, reading, and reading ability. Rase, 7(1). Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download? doi=10.1.1.905.7606&rep=rep1&type=pdf Hart, B. & Risley, T.R. “The Early Catastrophe:The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3” (2003, spring). American Educator, pp.4-9. https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading101-course/toolbox/decoding https:// Lyon, G. R. (1997, October 27). Why Johnny Can't Decode. Retrieved from http://www.ldonline.org/article/6395/ Sprenger, M. (2013). Processing and storing vocabulary. In Teaching the critical vocabulary of the common core. ASCD. doi:http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/113040/chapters/Processing-and-Storing-Vocabulary.aspx Squires, K. E. (2018, July 05). Decoding: It's not all about the letters. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29978208