How To Help Children Who Struggle With Reading: It All Starts With Sound

6/15/2025

Some children arrive in the classroom already aware of how sounds work in words. Others need more time — and that’s okay. If you’ve taught primary, you know firsthand how wide the range can be when it comes to early literacy skills.

I've been working this year with small groups and one on one with some students in Grade 1 and 2 who are still trying to put it all together. The key to helping them move forward was recognizing that they needed to work on phonemic awareness and phonics: two separate (but deeply connected) skills.

It All Starts With Sound — Why Phonemic Awareness Is Still the Foundation

If you’ve ever sat beside a young student who’s trying to read but just keeps guessing or skipping words, you’ve probably asked yourself: “Where did this break down?” Even with the best reading programs and phonics lessons, some kids still struggle—and it’s usually because something’s missing at the very beginning: phonemic awareness.

If students can’t hear and play with the sounds in words, then decoding them with letters won’t stick. That’s why even in the early grades, we need to keep revisiting those foundational skills like:

Rhyming
Isolating beginning and ending sounds
Blending and segmenting spoken words
Manipulating sounds in fun, hands-on ways

💡 Try this tip: Before moving into written word work, play a quick “sound stretch” game with students. Say the word bat and have them stretch it out: /b/… /a/… /t/. Then ask, “What word did we just build?”

Phonemic awareness is all about sounds. Can a child hear and manipulate the individual sounds in words?

Can they isolate the beginning sound in "mat"?
Can they blend /s/ /a/ /t/ to say "sat"?
Can they swap the /b/ in "bat" for /h/ to make "hat"?

What’s the Difference Between Phonemic Awareness and Phonics?

It’s easy to use these terms interchangeably, but they aren’t the same:

Phonemic Awareness is all about sounds—spoken words. It includes skills like rhyming, identifying beginning sounds, blending and segmenting spoken words, and manipulating sounds.
Phonics is where sounds meet print—linking letters and letter patterns to those sounds.

Phonics is about connecting those sounds to print. Once a child can hear and work with sounds, we help them attach letters to each one: /m/ = m, /a/ = a, /t/ = t.
When a child is struggling with reading simple words, it often helps to pause and ask: do they really have the sound skills yet? We can teach all the phonics we want, but if the ears haven’t caught up to the eyes, reading becomes guesswork.

Many struggling readers are missing that foundational ability to hear and work with sounds before trying to decode printed words. If we skip this step, phonics instruction feels like a foreign language.

Try This Activity: Sound Boxes With No Letters

Before you even bring out the flashcards or worksheets, give students 3-part sound boxes and say a word like “map.”
Have them push a counter into each box as they say: /m/ – /a/ – /p/. Then ask:
“Can you stretch it out again? Now say it fast: map.”
You’re strengthening the idea that words are made of sounds—something many kids don’t naturally pick up without explicit practice.

Here are some easy activities to try

Sound Match Cards: Use picture cards (no words) to play a game where students match items with the same beginning sound. Cat and cup? Yes. Cat and sun? Not yet!
Blending Routines: Say three sounds slowly: /f/ /a /n/. Ask: "What word?" Then switch: "I’ll say it fast, you tell me the sounds: fan." This builds blending and segmenting skills.
Sound Swaps with Movement: Use tiles or squares. Lay out three tiles for "mat." Now change the first tile to make "sat." Then swap the final tile to make "sad." This reinforces manipulation of sounds.

Once students can hear and work with sounds in words, they’re ready for simple phonics work. The transition should be seamless: introduce one vowel at a time (usually short a), pair it with a few consonants, and work in lots of different ways with the same small group of words.

Here's a resource that can help with building words or recognizing different cvc words. There's a set for each of the short vowels.

short vowel cvc words tile activities and worksheets

Teaching Tip: One Sound at a Time Still Counts

We often feel pressure to keep moving forward in our curriculum, but for struggling students, going slow is the fastest way forward.
A week focused just on short a might seem like a lot—but it builds confidence and mastery that can transfer to other vowels and more complex words later.
In your upcoming lessons, focus on:

Daily blending and segmenting practice using oral language
One short vowel sound per week or unit
Repetition through multiple formats: games, small group, centers, and independent work

Here's a cvc activity sampler for the short vowel "a". Grab a copy here and try it out for yourself.

Final Thought
Remember: If a student can’t read a word, it doesn’t mean they’re not trying—it may just mean they never fully heard the word’s parts in the first place.