8 Questions to Ask About Reading at Your Parent-Teacher Conference

The best questions to ask about reading at a conference are about decoding: which letter-sound patterns the class has been taught, which ones your child reads reliably, what the screener showed and what the plan is, which tricky words your child knows, what the teacher says when a child is stuck, and what to practice at home.

Ask the school how long your slot is. There's a lot to cover, so here are eight questions in a sensible order. Pick the three that matter most and write them on your phone before you walk in. A list helps you use the time well.

Questions about what has been taught

1. Which letter-sound patterns has the class been taught so far this year?

A sound–spelling pattern is a letter or group of letters that stands for a sound, like the sh in ship or the ai in rain. Decoding means reading a word by turning those letters into sounds and blending the sounds together. Asking what has been taught tells you what your child has actually been shown, which a single report card mark may not show. If you want the bigger picture, what the reading level on a report card means covers why a letter or number doesn't answer this on its own.

2. Which of those patterns does my child read reliably, and which are still shaky?

If a teacher says a pattern is "secure" or "mastered," ask what that means for your child. A useful test is whether your child reads it correctly nearly every time, in new words and in sentences, without a long pause, not just in a list they practiced. Ask for one or two examples: "Could you give me an example of a word with a pattern my child reads reliably, and one with a pattern that's still shaky?" A concrete word is worth more than a general comment.

Questions about the screener

3. What did the screener show for my child?

A reading screener is a short check given to every child in a class, usually a few times a year. DIBELS, one widely used screener, describes its measures as short, one-minute checks that can be used to detect risk and monitor early reading skills. A screener flags who might need extra help. Finding the cause takes a different kind of check, a diagnostic assessment.

Ask which skills were checked, because the tasks differ by grade. In kindergarten, a child may be asked to read made-up words such as dif or nop (examples from the Acadience screener). That's deliberate: a made-up word can't be recognized from memory, so it shows whether a child can use letter sounds and blend them. Our guide to reading screeners lists what the common ones measure and what the labels mean.

4. What is the plan, and when will we look at it again?

Whatever the result, ask for the next step in plain words. Good follow-ups:

• What will my child get, and how often (for example, a small group a few times a week)?
• Who will be teaching it?
• How will you check whether it's working, and when will you tell me?

If the news is good, the question is still worth asking: "What comes next for my child?" A child who is on track still has new patterns, spelling and longer books ahead, and the teacher can tell you which comes next and what to practice at home.

Questions about words and stuck moments

5. Which tricky words does my child know?

A tricky word (some schools say heart word) is a common word with a part that doesn't follow the letter-sound patterns your child has been taught, like the ai in said, which says /ĕ/ as in bed. Some tricky words stop being tricky once the class learns their pattern; said stays tricky. Ask whether the class learns them by looking at which parts follow the patterns and which part doesn't. Ask which ones the class is working on now and which ones your child still mixes up, so the words at home match the words at school.

6. What do you say when my child gets stuck on a word?

It's the most practical question on the list, because the answer shapes what you do at the kitchen table. A routine that keeps your child's eyes on the letters goes like this: wait a few seconds, point to the part of the word your child missed, say those sounds together, blend the whole word and reread the sentence so it sounds smooth. For a tricky word, say the word and point to the tricky part.

If the teacher describes it differently, ask a curious follow-up, such as "Can you show me how that looks with a real word?", and take notes. You are collecting information, not grading anyone. At home, the routine above is a good one to use, and our post on what to do when your child gets stuck on a word walks through it with examples.

Questions about home

7. What should we practice at home, and for how long?

Ask for something small and specific: a pattern, a short list of words, or a particular book. "Read more" is hard to act on at 7:30 on a school night. Ask whether the take-home books are matched to the patterns taught so far. A decodable book is made mostly of words a child can sound out with the patterns they've been taught, plus a few tricky words taught by their regular and irregular parts. If a book your child is meant to read on their own has a lot of words they haven't been taught, it's fair to ask: "Is this one for my child to read, or for us to read together?" If you're unsure how to choose a starting point, how to choose a reading level can help.

8. How will I hear how it's going?

End with logistics. Would the teacher prefer email, a note in the folder or a short call? How soon after a screener will you see the results? What is a good time of year to check in again? A named way to follow up turns a short meeting into a conversation that continues.

How to ask so the answers are useful

Tone matters as much as the questions. A few habits help:

• Start with what you've noticed. "At home he sounds out short words well but stalls on words with two vowels together" gives the teacher something to match against what they see.
• Ask "what," not "why not." "What is being taught now?" opens a conversation. "Why hasn't she been taught this?" ends one.
• Write down the words you hear, especially pattern names and the take-home plan. Ask the teacher to spell anything unfamiliar.
• Bring your child's work if you can, such as a book from the bag or a page from a notebook.

You don't need the right jargon. If something is unclear, "Could you say that in everyday words?" is a perfectly good question.

Try a sample story before you go

If you'd like a concrete example of reading practice to talk about, The Lost Lamp is a free sample story for first grade, Step 4 of 5 (more vowel teams), built from the phonics patterns for that step. There is a free sample for each of our 13 steps, so you can pick the one closest to what your child's class is working on. It can give you something to read together and some language to bring to the conversation.

Sources

• University of Oregon, About DIBELS
• Acadience Learning, Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF)
• Colorado Department of Education, Dyslexia Handbook: assessment (screening and diagnostic evaluation)