Special Education - My Child Confuses Similar Words

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     This problem is more common than most people think.  Parents see their children confusing similar letters and especially words and they go into a panic. 

     There is no reason to panic.  Your child may be jumping the gun when reading, or not paying full attention to the words.  Most kids grow out of this ‘problem’.

     If it is a concern, you do have some techniques at your disposal.

1.    Verbally correct your child every time he/she confuses words.  Your child needs to hear the correct pronunciation.  You can do this in a non-confidence-undermining way.  For example, let’s say your child reads the word “cut” as “cute”.  You can say, “You’re really close!  The word is pronounced ‘cute’, but you did a great job sounding out the word.”

2.    Obtain a list of word families for your child.  An example of a word family would be ‘words with an oo sound’.  This will help your child to discriminate words more effectively if he/she is more familiar with word families.

3.    Make a list of words that your child often confuses.  You can print them on the computer accompanied by pictures so that your child identifies the spelling with the correct pronunciation. 

4.    Teach your child to pay attention to word endings and beginnings so that your child becomes more aware of the words he/she is reading.

5.    Have your child read out loud to you on a regular basis.  This will enable you to see what types of words (e.g. suffixes, prefixes, words ending in ‘e’…) your child is confusing.

     Use these strategies at home and work with your child’s teacher so that you are both rectifying the problem from the same perspective.

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