1) Weak decoding skills - Many children appear to have basic decoding skills, but
are actually weak in many of the underlying fundamentals. When they reach third grade, their decoding skills cannot keep pace with the written material they are required to read. They may guess at words based on size or shape, letters in the word, or the context of the story. Poor reading accuracy results in misread or omitted words, which can change the meaning of sentences and interfere with reading comprehension. In addition, as reading material becomes more difficult, the effort required to read becomes increasingly fatiguing and there are fewer resources remaining to derive meaning from text.