Needs to focus: what report card comments miss about struggling readers

Report card comments like “needs to focus” and “should practise more” describe what a teacher observes, not why a child struggles. For many children with literacy difficulties, the real problem is the heavy mental effort of decoding words, not attention. Understanding the reason behind the difficulty is the first step towards meaningful support.

Why do the same comments appear year after year?

Many children with literacy difficulties receive similar comments year after year. “Needs to focus.” “Gets distracted easily.” “Should practise more.” “Needs to complete work on time.”

Often, parents have already approached the school before seeking intervention, and the feedback they receive is well intentioned but quite general. “He needs to focus more.” “She has to pay more attention.” “He doesn’t complete his work.”

These observations may be true. But they describe what teachers see in the classroom; they do not identify the underlying difficulty. A comment that repeats every term, in the same words, usually means the cause has not been found yet. The early indicators of a learning difficulty often hide behind exactly this kind of feedback.

Why does a struggling reader look inattentive?

Imagine asking a child to read a page while they are still trying to work out the sounds in individual words. Their brain is working much harder than their classmates’ brains. Every word costs deliberate effort. By the time they decode a sentence, they may have forgotten what they just read. So they go back, lose their place, drift, fidget.

From across the classroom, that looks like distraction. From inside the child’s head, it is exhaustion. What appears to be poor attention is often cognitive overload: the working memory that should be holding the meaning of the sentence is fully occupied with the mechanics of the words.

A child who seems distracted during reading may simply be carrying a far heavier mental load than anyone around them realises.

Attention is also not one single skill. There are different types of attention, and a child can be strong in some and weak in others, especially when the task itself is draining.

What should you ask instead of accepting the comment?

The most useful thing a parent can do with “needs to focus” is turn it into a question: what is making it so hard for him to focus during this particular task?

Start by noticing when the comment applies. If your child concentrates well on building, drawing or games, but falls apart during reading and writing, the problem is unlikely to be attention itself. Difficulties like dyslexia often sit quietly underneath years of “gets distracted easily”.

This is where an informal assessment of reading and spelling helps. It shows whether decoding is what is draining your child’s attention, and where the gaps begin.

What changes when adults understand the difference?

When teachers understand this difference, their support becomes far more effective. Shorter reading tasks, material at the right level, and a little more time change what the child can actually do with the attention they have.

Parents feel the shift too. Homework time stops being a battle over willpower. You can share the load by reading instructions aloud, breaking tasks into short pieces, and letting your child show what they know out loud when writing is the obstacle.

In my own sessions, I meet children who have collected the same comments for years. Given work that matches their level, taught step by step, the child described as distracted often works steadily through a full session. The attention was never missing. It was being spent on a task that was too heavy. If decoding gaps are the cause, the answer is not more of the same practice but structured reading and spelling intervention that rebuilds the foundations properly.

Frequently asked questions

Does this mean my child does not have an attention problem?

Not necessarily. Attention difficulties and literacy difficulties can exist together, and one can hide the other. The point is not to rule anything out at home but to find out what is actually driving the struggle. An assessment clarifies which it is, or whether it is both.

Shouldn’t more practice fix it?

If a child is practising with material full of words they cannot yet decode, more practice mostly delivers more failure. Practice helps once the child has been taught the patterns the practice depends on. Teach first, then practise.

How do I raise this with the school?

Bring specifics rather than a label: when the loss of focus happens, in which subjects, on which kinds of tasks. Teachers respond well to that detail, and it turns a general comment into a shared question about the cause.

My child focuses well on games. Doesn’t that prove focus is fine?

It shows attention works when the load is manageable. Games give instant feedback and adjust to the player; a page of print does not. Strong focus on games alongside poor focus on reading points towards a decoding difficulty, not laziness.

Dr. V.S. Gayathri is a Dyslexia Therapist, an Orton-Gillingham trained literacy specialist, and the founder of Flourishing Kids. She has delivered over 4,000 hours of one-to-one reading and spelling intervention, helping children across multiple countries build stronger literacy skills. If the same comments keep appearing on your child’s report card, get in touch for a free 15-minute conversation about what might sit underneath them.