There’s an old saying that a child learns to read until 3rd grade, then reads to learn from 4th grade on. For kids who have difficulty reading in the first place, expecting them now to comprehend what they read, makes reading especially difficult. Not surprisingly, they begin to hate school.

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in 2007, 30% of Washington’s 4th graders failed to meet the requirements for “basic” reading levels. That’s essentially every one in three kids. Wouldn’t it be great if we could identify kids at risk for reading difficulties before a problem occurred? The good news is, we can.

An increasing body of research indicates that phonological and phonemic awareness — hearing, identifying, and manipulating sounds — are very important in learning to read. So, a child who is four or five years old and who is having difficulty recognizing or making rhymes or who cannot clap out the syllables in his name is waving some major red flags in our direction. Preschool and kindergarten teachers are becoming very savvy about noting where their students are having difficulty; maintaining constant and open communication with them is one of the best ways of assessing how your child is doing. Additionally, you can play games such as these with your preschooler to generally gauge where his or her phonological awareness skills lie:

• Play clapping games while you sing familiar songs. A child with good phonological awareness skills will be able to clap once for each word, or after you model it, each syllable.

• Make up silly lists of items that start with a certain sound and ask your child to add an item with the same sound: “On our vacation, we need to take books, bikes, butter, and bananas; what else should we take that starts with a “buh” sound?”

• Play the game, “One of these things is not like the other;” group together objects or pictures that either have the same initial sound or rhyme, except for one, and see if your preschooler can identify the odd man out.

If after playing some of these games, or if after communicating with your preschooler’s teacher, you have concerns that your child is having difficulty with some of these pre-reading skills, then you can arrange for a more formal evaluation to be conducted by a reading specialist and begin intervention with an experienced tutor or therapist. Parents who can recognize the red flags their children are raising and can make arrangements for the necessary intervention are taking huge steps to helping their children gain the skills they need to be good readers – skills they will keep for life.