Why is Reading Long Sentences Hard for My Child?
Does your child struggle with reading long sentences? They might have had a pretty easy time with reading short sentences like “Pat hit the ball” but now they seem lost and frustrated. They seem to be reading the same sentence over and over but they just don’t get it.
You might also be having difficulty trying to explain what a sentence means to them, maybe the sentence seems so obvious to you that you don’t know how to help or maybe you barely understand the complicated science-y sentence yourself.
If you think your child is struggling with reading in general, take a look at my longer blog post all about why individuals might struggle with reading.
With all that said, let’s get into why your kid, teen, or college-aged child might be struggling to read longer sentences!
I’m going to break the reasons why reading long sentences can be difficult into two categories: parts of sentences and sentences as a whole.
This won’t be a completely comprehensive list but it should give you some ideas and insights into why your child has difficulty with reading long sentences.
Parts of sentences that make reading hard
Sentences are made up of words. Long sentences are made up of even more words, so it makes sense that if someone struggles with reading words, they will have even more difficulty with reading long sentences with more words.
Why might someone struggle with reading words?
A student of any age might struggle with reading words because:
Decoding or “sounding out” words is difficult
They can’t read words automatically yet
They don’t have the vocabulary skills necessary to connect the word they are reading to some meaning
They struggle to break longer words down into meaningful parts (morphology, think prefixes and suffixes)
Decoding
If a student has trouble decoding or “sounding out” words, it means that they are finding it difficult to match the letters that they are seeing to sounds. This might be because they don’t know which sounds go with the letter(s) they see (sh sounds like shhh (she) not sss (snake) + hhh (happy). Alternatively, they might have a problem with making the connection between sounds and letters fast enough so it slows them down considerably.
Reading words automatically
The goal of reading words is not to be able to sound out each word you read but to be able to read most words automatically. If we had to sound out every word on a page, we would be very frustrated by the end of the sentence, let alone the end of a paragraph or more.
Reading words automatically means that you see the word and are able to connect to the sounds of the whole word at once, rather than needing to sound out each letter. This is probably the way that you are reading this blog post. There might be a few words that are less familiar to you, like decoding, that might make you pause, but for the most part, your average adult reader will be able to read most of this post automatically. That’s good because we are talking about something complex and you wouldn’t have the bandwidth to think about something complex if you had to sound out each word.
If your child or teen has to spend so much of their mental energy on reading words by sounding them out, then they won’t have enough mental energy to actually think about the meaning of the words and sentences. This means they will have to read a sentence over and over again to get any sense of the meaning.
Vocabulary
Maybe sounding out words and reading words automatically is a piece of cake for your kid, but they still struggle to understand what they read.
This could be because they struggle with the meaning of words themselves, aka they have difficulty with vocabulary. If your child or teen doesn’t know what the word “organism” means, it won’t matter how well they can read it out loud, they still won’t understand the meaning.
This is especially true for non-fiction texts. A lot of history and science textbooks have more advanced and specific vocabulary words that your child or teen may not have ever seen before. Does your child particularly struggle with reading science or history books? Difficulty with vocabulary skills might be why.
Morphology
Longer sentences may also be difficult because they are more likely to have longer words. Longer words can be difficult for children and teens to read if they don’t know how to break those words down into smaller parts. When we break long words into smaller pieces of meaning (morphemes), like prefixes and suffixes, it can help us read and understand words.
Confused about what I mean by prefixes and suffixes? Here are some examples. If I’m reading the word “preview” but I’ve never encountered that word before, I can use my morphological skills to pull out the prefix “pre-” and break the word into two parts: pre - view. If I know that the prefix “pre-” means before, I can understand pretty quickly that this new word “preview” means to view before. I didn’t even need to look it up in a dictionary! Some other examples of prefixes and suffixes are “re-” in “redo,” “un-” and “-able” in “unbelievable,” and “dis"-” in “disagreement.”
If your child doesn’t know the most common prefixes and suffixes in English, they might struggle with reading new words or less familiar words so much that they miss the meaning of the sentence they’re reading.
Sentences: why they’re hard to read
Perhaps your child doesn’t have too much difficulty with reading words but they still struggle with reading long sentences. That could be because they
struggle with how words and phrases work together in a sentence (syntax)
have trouble holding ideas in their minds (working memory)
have difficulty with paying attention
Syntax, aka how words work together in a sentence
This is one of my favorite areas to discuss and work on because it is often overlooked. Once students have enough reading experience to begin to learn from what they read (classically thought to be around 3rd grade and beyond), they are going to need to read complex sentences. Complex sentences are sentences that have multiple clauses like relative clauses, adverbial clauses, and nominal clauses. For some examples of these types of complex sentences, read the syntax section of my post on why children struggle to read.
You might be thinking that these types of sentences are too complicated for children in elementary and middle school and might only be learning how to use complex sentences in high school. However, children and teens should already have experience with these types of sentences. Research shows that children use complex sentences in about 20% of their sentences by age 4!
Though children in elementary school, middle school, and definitely high school and college are expected to be able to use complex sentences, many of the students I work with struggle with these types of sentences. And with some speech-language therapy, students can learn how to not only read these types of sentences but also feel comfortable using these sentences in their writing and other communications.
Before we move on to the next section, let’s consider how being comfortable with complex sentence structure can help you read. If a proficient reader reads the beginning of the sentence “If you don’t…” then they will already anticipate that there will be a “then” later in the sentence. (Did you see how the last sentence you read actually HAD that structure?!) Before the student even finished half of the sentence, they already know that there is going to be a condition coming up and can start making guesses about what will come next and may even develop a visual in their mind.
Working memory
Working memory is the ability to hold ideas or concepts in your mind and manipulate them. You may have found out that your child or teen has difficulty with working memory from a neuropsychological report. Students who struggle with working memory may struggle to read long sentences because they have difficulty holding the words and ideas from the beginning of the sentence in their minds long enough to remember them at the end of the sentence. They may have to read a sentence over and over again in order to get the meaning.
About me: I’m actually not that great with working memory myself! If you tell me something that you want me to do I need to write it down. If you tell me your phone number, I’m going to need to jot it down in chunks. BUT my difficulty with working memory has not kept me from being a voracious reader. Your child’s struggles do not need to mean they will never be able to read or will always hate reading.
One of my favorite strategies for improving reading comprehension is visualizing while I read. I’ve seen so many of my teen, adult, and child clients make great progress while learning to visualize.
Attention
Attention is important for pretty much anything we do in life. If your child or teen has difficulty maintaining their attention while in class, watching a movie, or participating in a conversation, that difficulty will extend to reading. If your child has difficulty with attention, that might be why they struggle to read long sentences that demand them to pay attention longer than short sentences. With longer sentences, it’s harder to easily skim and speed read because the student might need to break down the meaning of sentences, especially those complex sentences mentioned before.
Does your child or adolescent struggle with reading long sentences?
Let’s talk about it!
I’d love to help you figure out if a speech-language evaluation and/or therapy would be good for your child.
Schedule a free consultation today!
Hi, I’m Hollis, the owner of Mindful Speech.
I’m a speech-language pathologist licensed in Illinois and Colorado.
I specialize in providing speech therapy to help children, teens, and young adults to improve language, reading, writing, and executive functioning skills. Now offering in-person sessions in Chicago!
Learn more about me on my About Hollis page.