In an article for the Colegio Nueva Granada, Susan Hall states that "difficulty manipulating sounds in words is one of the hallmark characteristics of reading difficulties and can be seen at a young age." This sentiment is also shared by PBS Misunderstood Minds, which cites the difficulty of sounding out words as one of the key warning signs of reading comprehension difficulties. Students who struggle to sound out words are then unable to read those words and get a full understanding of what they mean, which prohibits reading comprehension from developing effectively.
Children who are unable to articulate themselves well or pronounce words correctly may also have a difficulty with reading comprehension. If your child does not talk much in school, is uninterested in communicating with her peers or hates the idea of reading in front of her classmates, she may be struggling with reading and reading comprehension. Work with your child to help her learn the pronunciation of words so she becomes more confident when speaking and learns to remember those words she is reading and speaking.
Look at your child's writing abilities in order to monitor for reading comprehension difficulties. In her article from the Colegio Nueva Granada, Susan Hall states that "by the end of kindergarten a child should be writing words that contain most of the consonant sounds in a word." If your child's writing is missing a lot of consonants, it is likely that he is not learning to read and comprehend texts effectively or efficiently.
In her article, "Children's Reading Comprehension Difficulties," Katie Nelson states "even when reading accuracy is adequate, if it is slow or inefficient, comprehension may be compromised." If you notice that your child reads words extremely slowly, takes long breaks in between words or spends too much time sounding out a word, it can be a warning sign that your child is not understanding what she is reading. When a child spends a lot of time reading words out loud, she probably won't be able to remember the words she read at the beginning of the sentence by the time she gets to the end and will then lack an understanding of the material.