What to Do When Your Child With ADHD Struggles with Reading

Children with ADHD often struggle to learn how to read, and with reading comprehension once they have learned to read.  This article deals with difficulties in learning how to read. I will deal with reading comprehension in a later post.

Difficulty with reading is not a core symptom of ADHD.  Many children with ADHD are above average readers.   However,  children diagnosed with ADHD are more likely than neurotypical children to have difficulty with reading.  

Children with ADHD have difficulty with reading due to core symptoms of ADHD.

Usually children with ADHD who are having difficulty with reading due to ADHD alone will struggle with all subjects that require attention to detail, listening, staying on task, and sitting still in a classroom.  Treatment of the core symptoms with medication, diet and adequate exercise will usually help the problem.  Strong consideration should be given to medication, as being unable to read will set a child up for difficulties in many subject areas.

Children with ADHD have difficulty with reading due to dyslexia.

Dyslexia is a brain disorder where the patient sees letter and number reversals, or has difficulty connecting letters/letter combinations with sounds.  Reading, spelling and handwriting are typically affected.  Children with the auditory form of the disorder may exhibit difficulty with rhyming and segmenting words into their separate sounds, as well as understanding letter blends.

There are many interventions which are helpful, including:
1) multisensory techniques
2) integrating reading with handwriting and spelling to reinforce learning
3) structured reading curriculum which systematically teaches reading skills
4) reinforcement and review
5) re-reading to improve fluency

Children with ADHD have difficulty with reading due to visual tracking problems.

Children with this disorder will often see letters and numbers blurring, blending, moving, and jumping on the page.  They will not know that this is not normal, and so will not bring it up unless you question them about it.  In school, these children may show difficulty with paying attention because their eyes will not follow the teacher very easily.  These children are usually not hyperactive and their symptoms are often much worse in school than at home, where visual tracking is much less necessary.  An optometrist can diagnose visual tracking problems and may prescribe vision therapy.  At times vision therapy is not covered by insurance.

Other ways to help a child with visual tracking disorders include using special fonts (usually sans serif) and wider spacing.  On demand publishers sometimes will print books specially designed for readers with developmental vision problems.

All children who are having difficulty learning to read benefit from accommodations until they are able to read fluently.  Accommodations do not allow the child to learn to read, but enable progress in other subject areas.  Such accommodations include:
allowing oral or dictated work
allowing recording of assignments
allowing more time for tests
using audio books, and
using adequate spacing and font size.

References:
"Dyslexia Interventions." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Nov. 2014. Web. 07 Mar. 2015.


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