Early detection of reading deficiencies presents the greatest opportunity for improvement with the proper intervention. Many times you will notice the most important clues to a potential reading problem by listening to your child speak. Your child will show subtle signs of phonological skills that are not developing as they should. The following pre-reading clues would be strong indicators of potential reading challenges:

• Delay in speaking – As a general rule, children say their first words at about one year and phrases by eighteen months to two year. A delay here is a modest one that parents may explain away as a family history of late talking. A seemingly innocent speech delay may be an early warning sign of future reading problems- especially in a family that has a history of reading problems.  
• Difficulties in pronunciation – Often referred to as “baby talk” beyond the normal time frame may be another warning sign. By the time a child reaches the age of five or six, they should have little problems saying most words correctly. Attempting to sound out new words for the first time can reveal challenges with articulation. Typical mispronunciations involve inverting sounds within a word (aminal for animal), or leaving off beginning sounds (tore for store). 
• Rhyming words – Most preschoolers enjoy games with sounds and rhyming words. Three and four-year-olds derive great pleasure out of hearing and repeating sounds, such as Hickory, dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. However, some children have trouble penetrating the sound structure of words and as a result are less sensitive to rhyme. Children’s familiarity with nursery rhymes is a strong predictor of their later success in reading. Parents may notice that at age four their son is still not able to recite popular nursery rhymes, and may even confuse words that sound alike.
• Producing words on command – Look for speech that is littered with hesitations; there may be long pauses or the use of many indirect words in place of the single word he can’t come up with (referred to as circumlocution). When given a choice at the word, more often than not he will recognize the correct word. These phonological deficiencies don’t reflect the child’s knowledge of what the word means, but rather his challenges in producing the word on demand.
• Phoneme weakness – Perhaps the most critical early warning sign is the child’s inability to learn the names and the sounds of the letters of the alphabet. Learning the alphabet, learning the names of individual letters, and then learning the sounds that the letters make, marks an important milestone for the would-be reader. For the first time the child is expected to link the letters with their names and their sounds. This marks the beginning of reading. This accomplishment must be in place for the child to read.