ADHD symptoms that may be impacting your child’s reading

Many children and adults with ADHD struggle with aspects of reading. While reading skills are essential for academic and learning success, not all children who struggle to read have reading disabilities or Dyslexia. Some of the most common reading difficulties that children with ADHD experience include:

• Difficulties with encoding and decoding

• Phonological and Orthographic Processing

• Rapid recall of site words

• Reading fluency (including skipping over words, difficulties with pacing, whole word errors)

• Visual tracking (losing spot on the page)

• Reading comprehension

• Fatigue and mental exhaustion (due to re-reading, tracking, and sustaining mental effort)

• Poor working memory (tracking and sequencing multiple bits of information at a time)

• Reading errors (getting the “gist” of reading yet struggling with fact based questions)

If your child is experiencing any consistent patterns or avoidance of developmental reading efficiency, it is important to discuss your concerns with your child’s providers, teachers, or school. There is a large shift in education that begins around 3rd grade where children shift from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Knowing the source or what lies behind your child’s reading weaknesses is the most important factor in skill building. With appropriate support, accommodations, and skill building, many children can see improvement in their reading skills and overall confidence in learning.

Have questions about your child’s reading or looking to learn more information? Contact Dr. Bobal today!