6 Tips for How to Help Struggling Readers in Reading Intervention

If you need guidance knowing how to help struggling readers in your classroom, try these 6 tips to make your reading intervention time actually work!

Here are 6 tips for how to help struggling readers and make your reading interventions actually work.

It is so hard to see any child struggle, especially when it affects their self esteem. As teachers we often stay awake at night, wondering how to help struggling readers. How can we make our reading interventions actually work, and teach students how to read?

I spent so much time struggling over this thought. I wanted any effort into helping these students to actually be what was best for them, and to work! Well, I ended up taking a good look at the reading intervention activities and routines we were doing. And I had to get real with myself. There was some fluff, there was some busy work, and there was definitely some floundering. Doing lots of activities and busy stuff, but not seeing progress. I took the time to make some serious changes in my plan for how to help struggling readers. If you are feeling the teacher stress like I was, you might be interested in this blog post where I talk about the key to stress-free reading intervention.

Here are the tips I came up with to revolutionize my reading intervention time. This right here, is magic. When I made helping my struggling readers a priority, and really zeroed in on having effective reading intervention, I started to see progress. My students actually started to read, enjoy reading, and believe in themselves. Teaching a child how to read is one of the most empowering things you can do for them. And seeing them make that leap and learn how to read is one of the most rewarding experiences a teacher can have. I would love for you to have that experience for every single one of your sweet kiddos. So, here are my tips to help you reach that goal.

*SPOILER ALERT: There is a bonus tip at the very end, that may or may not include a very awesome FREEBIE!!

6 Reading Intervention Tips for How to Help Struggling Readers

Use these tips during any reading intervention activity you do with your struggling readers. They are great, general guiding principles the base your planning on. If you need more specific ideas for activities to do with your struggling readers, you can read my HUGE list of Reading Intervention Activities. I go into detail on fun reading intervention activities for each type of learner: tactile, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, so you can find exactly the activities that will engage your struggling readers.

Tip # 1: Consistency

Consistent practice, without long breaks, can help struggling readers.

One of the most important tips I can give for how to help struggling readers, is to read every day!!! Whether it’s listening to reading, reading with help, or even looking through a picture book on their own. They need to have a positive experience with reading every. single. day. At home, at school, whenever they can! Here are my favorite book recommendations for different reading levels, if you need help finding accessible texts.
With specific reading interventions in the classroom, try to hit the skills you are intervening on at least every other day. Every day is ideal, but every other day will still keep the momentum.
Leaving a big gap in between practice might cause them to loose some of their progress. Consistent practice will make these skills more second nature, and give them plenty of opportunity to review fresh skills.

Tip #2: Quality over Quantity

To help struggling readers, give short, quality reading interventions instead of overwhelming, long sessions.

While you want to be consistent and practice every day, you do not want to overload and overwhelm the student.
A little bit every day is better than 2 hours once a week.
Our struggling readers get very tired and lose focus easy. Intervention time when a student is totally checked out and not engaged, is not really intervention time any more.
If you have a large chunk of time to work with a student, break it up into several shorter activities. Quick, focused activities are the most effective.
However, when you only have a short intervention session, you have to make the most of your time and make sure it is high quality (see below).

Tip # 3: Focused and Intentional Practice

Focused and intentional reading interventions are essential to help struggling readers.

Vague and “fluffy” practice won’t cut it for struggling readers. Be very intentional about the reading intervention activities you have them do.
Make sure that the activities you use are completely aligned with the skill you are intervening on.
Targeted practice means that you target exactly the skill you want them to master, and give them exactly that kind of practice.
For example, if you want them to know the sound that the vowel team “ai” makes, every activity you do will practice reading the “ai” sound. You wouldn’t want to spend time having them draw words that have a “long a” sound, because the skill you are targeting is not “listen for long a sounds in words” but rather “say the long a sound when reading the letters ai”. Instead, you might have them circle all of the “ai’s” in a list of words, and say the long a sound each time they circle.
If you need help figuring out which skills to specifically target, grab my FREE Reading Skills Step Ladder for a progression of reading skills. You can also check out my Comprehensive Reading Assessment to help you pinpoint exactly which skills your students need intervention in.

Tip #4: Positivity

The most important tip for how to help struggling readers, is to stay positive!

Okay, I lied. This might be the most important tip for helping struggling readers. As with all teaching, positivity is absolutely key. However, it is especially important when working with these sweet kiddos who are struggling. They have felt discouraged, embarrassed, and frustrated. More stress or negativity will only make them shut down. They truly need someone who believes in them. Be that person for them.
Use a lot of praise, help them celebrate the small successes, and always tell them that you know they can do it. I talk more about making every child feel successful in this blog post: 11 Reading Intervention Strategies that Work.

Tip #5: Volunteers

Make the most of your volunteers by using them to help struggling readers.

No matter how much we want to do for our students, sometimes there is just not enough time in the day. Whenever you can, be the one to give your students that extra help, but when that isn’t possible, use volunteers.
It is so nice and convenient to have volunteers (parents, college students, etc.) cut out lamination and make copies. However, sometimes the most valuable thing they can do is sit down with your students that need a little extra help.
Have a binder or folder full of reading intervention activities that is quick and easy to pull out and hand to the volunteer without a lot of explanation. Make sure there are directions in the front, and a list of students you want them to pull back and work with (see below).

Tip #6: Quick and Easy Options

Use Reading Intervention Binders for quick and easy activities to help struggling readers.

Whether you need something that is self-explanatory for volunteers, or something that is super quick for when you have a few spare minutes to pull students back, make sure that you have a quick and easy go-to intervention tool.
I have always had intervention binders with tons of reading intervention activities to practice each skill, plus data tracking pages for everything. It does initially take a bit of prep to set up, but it will be so worth it for the rest of the year!
If you want something that is already put together for you, check out my Reading Intervention Binders. All you have to do is print and put in page protectors, and you are good to go!

Tip #7:BONUS!!

This is a great reading intervention guide to show you how to help struggling readers.

I have one more bonus tip for you! Sometimes, you are just at a loss for what your students need, and how to address those needs. To solve tis problem, I created a FREE Reading Intervention Cheat Sheet you can grab here that has tons tips, student characteristics, and reading intervention activities for specific areas of reading. Seriously, a life saver for guiding your intervention! I hope it can help you avoid what I went through (the floundering and frustration) and help you know how to help your struggling readers.

Happy teaching, and happy reading my friends!

PS: If you are looking for a super fun reading intervention activity, check out my post on Using Play-Dough to Teach Phonics!

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