5 common word reading errors and how to help

5 common word reading errors

and how to help

Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia

Middle Tennessee State University

Decoding Tips

for Parents

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Decoding Tips for Parents

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Five Common Word Reading Errors and How to Help

All children benet from learning how spoken sounds are mapped onto letters as they

begin to read. Children who struggle with reading words and spelling, like those with

dyslexia, need to be directly taught letter-sound relationships, and they need lots of practice

decoding words (using their knowledge of vowels and consonants to pronounce a word) to

become skilled readers.

Accurate word reading is a critical step in understanding what is read! Focus on the words

being read so you can give support in correcting reading mistakes. Don’t encourage your

child to use pictures to gure out how to say a word. You can use pictures to conrm words

they already read correctly. Don’t use “guessing games” to help your child gure out a word.

Guessing how to read a word based on pictures or beginning letter-sounds encourages

habits that work against skilled reading.

Don’t use context clues to decode a word.

Context can be used to help with the

meaning of a word that has already been

read correctly.

Listen carefully to the words your child

misreads. You may want to jot the word

down along with how it was misread. After

your child nishes a phrase or sentence,

pause and think about how to help your

child read missed words correctly.

Here are some common word reading errors and how you can help your child improve

decoding skills.

Decoding Tips for Parents 1

Using this guide

Each type of error will be labeled, and an example of what that particular error sounds like

and looks like is given.

Guiding steps are provided to help you give supportive and corrective feedback to your

child. These steps help you and your child work together to break apart the word, focus on

letter-sounds, and then blend the parts together to read the word smoothly.

This guidance includes prompts you would say to your child, and what your child should say

or repeat is noted in blue.

The bottom of each page provides bonus tips with more information about each type of

word reading error.

ERROR 1: Guessing a word based on the beginning or ending

letter-sounds

Your child guesses a word based on the beginning and/or ending letter-sounds.

Child reads wait as went.

• Help your child read through the whole word.

• Break the word apart into its individual sounds. /w/ /ā/ /t/

• Emphasize the vowel sound. Tell your child the two letters ai make the one

/ā/ sound.

• Model blending the sounds together with an emphasis on the misread part of

the word. /w/ /aaaaaaaaa/ /t/

• Read the word again smoothly. wait

• Re-read the phrase or sentence that contained the word.

We wait for the bus.

Throughout this planning guide, you will see marks on words to help you know how to

pronounce them. Some marks are used to denote if a letter corresponds to a long or short

vowel sound.

Long and short vowel sounds

Short Vowel Sounds

A breve is used to indicate

when a letter corresponds to a

short vowel sound.

păt

fĕtch

trĭp

cȏt

hȗnch

Long Vowel Sounds

A macron is used to indicate

when a letter corresponds to a

long vowel sound.

cāke

bē

līne

gō

hūge

2 Decoding Tips for Parents

Your child reads the letter-sounds in a word out of order.

Child reads strap as taps.

• Help your child read through the whole word.

• Make sure your child knows the meaning of words that will help them use

decoding skills, such as rst, last, before, and after.

• Ask your child to point to the rst letter and say each letter name in the word.

s t r a p

• Ask your child to point again to the rst letter, and tell them to read all the way

through the word from the rst letter-sound to the last. /s/ /t/ /r/ /ă/ /p/

• Model as needed, slowly reading each letter-sound. /s/ /t/ /r/ /ă/ /p/

• Read the word smoothly. strap

• Re-read the phrase or sentence that contained the word.

The strap is too loose.

2 Decoding Tips for Parents

ERROR 2: Reads the letter-sounds in a word out of order

Giving ‘tricks’ such as having your child draw a word picture of a bed, imagining a bat and

ball, or recalling which letter has a belly or a diaper takes your child out of the reading or

writing moment and can add more stress to their working memory load.

Keep your child in the reading moment with an emphasis on the letter-sound relationship.

For the letter b, help your child notice that the line comes rst in this letter. Ask them to

make their mouth into a line by pressing the lips together. This prepares the mouth to

make the sound of the letter b, /b/. Have your child say the letter name and its sound each

time it is corrected.

For the letter d, help your child notice that the round part comes rst in this letter. Ask

them to round their tongue up to the roof of the mouth. This prepares the mouth to make

the sound of the letter d, /d/. Have your child say the letter name and its sound each time

it is corrected.

This takes consistency and many repetitions to correct! Use the same error correction cues

every time, and focus on over-correcting one letter-sound before emphasizing the other.

My child mixes up b and d letter-sounds

Decoding Tips for Parents 3

Your child gets stuck on vowel sounds.

Child reads coin as cone.

• Reinforce the parts of the word they read correctly. Yes, the c says /k/ and the n

says /n/

• Model the vowel sound (oi says /oy/). The two letters oi make the sound /oy/.

• Have your child name the letters and say the sound. oi says /oy/

• Ask your child to sound out the whole word and reblend. /k/ /oy/ /n/, coin

• Re-read the phrase or sentence that contained the word.

The old coin was rusty.

When a vowel sound is produced in speech, the chin drops as air ows from the mouth.

Try it with the long and short sounds for vowel letters a, e, i, o, u: feel your chin drop as

you make these sounds.

Every spoken syllable has a vowel sound. Vowel sounds can be represented in writing

by one or more letters. Vowel teams can be tricky because two or more letters can make

one sound (ai = /ā/), or they can combine to make an unexpected sound (au= /aw/,

ou= /ow/). Children need to be taught these patterns directly, and then they get lots of

practice reading them in words and sentences.

Here are some common vowel teams and example words for the sounds they make:

ai rain

au launch

aw saw

ay day

ea each / bread

ee feet

ew new

igh sight

Vowel patterns can be tricky

oa boat

oi join

oo book / moon

ou out / soup

ow cow / grow

oy boy

ur turn

ERROR 3: Gets stuck on vowel sounds

4 Decoding Tips for Parents

4 Shared Reading Planning Guide

Your child mixes up short, high-frequency words.

Child reads from as for.

• Your child should use decoding skills on all words, even words they may have

been taught to recognize as whole words (often referred to as “sight” words).

• Reinforce the parts of the word that make their expected sounds. The f says /f/,

the r says /r/, the m says /m/

• Tell your child the unexpected sound if it is an irregular word. The o in the word

from makes the /ǔ/ sound.

• Ask your child to sound out the word and reblend. /f/ /r/ /ǔ/ /m/, from

• These high-frequency words require lots of practice and repetition. Re-read

them as single words (from), as parts of phrases (from the store), and in

sentences (He got a drink from the store.)

ERROR 4: Mixes up short, high-frequency words

High-frequency words (often called sight words) are taught because children see these

words a lot when they read. Reading these words correctly and quickly helps your child

become a uent reader, and it supports their understanding of what they are reading.

Children may be taught to memorize these as whole words instead of using their letter-

sounds to read them, but that is not the best way to read these words. Many of these

words have regular letter-sound patterns and can be sounded out like any other word

(after your child has learned each pattern). If the words are not regular, there’s usually

only one letter-sound that needs to be explained and memorized.

The following are some high-frequency words divided into two lists: those that can be

fully sounded out and those that have an irregular pattern exception.

Regular Words

High-frequency word reading is important

her

him

little

look

not

and

but

for

had

out

she

that

then

with

you

Exception Words

they

was

what

could

from

have

one

said

their

Decoding Tips for Parents 5

ERROR 4: Mixes up short, high-frequency words

Your child misreads long words.

Child reads athletic as athlick.

• Help your child break the word into its parts (syllables). ath let ic

• Read through each syllable separately as needed. The rst syllable is /ȃ/ /th/,

ath. The middle syllable is /l/ /ĕ/ /t/, let. The last syllable is /ȋ/ /k/, ic.

• Slowly blend the syllables back together, modeling and emphasizing particular

parts as needed. ath-let-ic

• Ask your child to read it the smooth way. athletic

• Re-read the phrase or sentence that contained the word.

She participated in many athletic events.

ERROR 5: Misreads Long Words

Written syllables are organized around a vowel sound. There are six common syllable types.

Knowing their patterns can help children predict the vowel sound and help them break longer

words into chunks. Here are the six common syllable types:

closed cat the vowel is followed by one or more consonants, the vowel sound is short

open no one vowel at the end with no consonants after it, the vowel sound is long

silent-e time one vowel followed by a consonant ending with a silent e, the vowel sound

is long

vowel team rain two vowels (or a vowel and a consonant) that combine to make one sound

r-controlled stern er, ar, ir, ur, or

consonant -le handle at the end of the word

Long words can be divided into their individual syllables so each part can be read and then

blended back together into the whole word. Every syllable has a vowel sound. Identifying the

vowel sounds and the consonants between them will help you divide long words for accurate

reading.

VC/CV in/sist

V/CV me/ter

VC/V rob/in

V/V di/et

VC/CCV com/plete

VCC/CV pump/kin

Common syllable division patterns

6 Decoding Tips for Parents

In Summary

You can best support your child’s

decoding skills by helping them focus on

the letter-sounds and spelling patterns

with the words. You’ll probably notice that

your child often makes the same types of

errors, so you will be able to emphasize

the particular decoding tips that best

match their needs.

Learning to read individual words

accurately is one very important part of

the reading process, and that is the focus

of this guide. Here are other important

ways to support your child’s reading

development:

• Model reading out loud with expression and a smooth pace.

• Discuss the meaning of words and how they are used in context.

• Ask questions, summarize, and make connections after reading individual

sentences, paragraphs, and pages.

Decoding Tips for Parents 7