Create a progress report. Download commercial progress reports or make up your own. Devising your own progress report allows you to personalize it for your school's reading program and teaching methods. Evaluate a child's ability for sight reading, recognizing sounds, word attack skills or reading comprehension. Charting a child's word-correct-per-minute reading ability can assess his grade reading level as well as his progress toward the next reading level. Keep the language simple and straightforward so parents can understand exactly what difficulties their child is having.
Assess the child's improvement from week to week. Measurable progress could include a child's success at tackling a new reader, needing less help with sounding out words, improved word recognition for common and familiar words or other reading successes. An increase in his ability to correctly read a certain numbers of words correctly per minute in a reader appropriate to his level can also show concrete improvement.
Describe the improvements on the report in terms the parents can appreciate and understand. Tell parents what the child needs to work on at home. If a parent knows a child still struggles with the difference between "p" and "d," or that he's guessing at words based on the first letter rather than sounding out the whole word, the parent can reinforce those skills at home.
Suggest ideas that the parents can implement at home, such as flash cards, games that stress simple reading skills, word games or book series geared to the child's reading level.