What Causes Comprehension Difficulties in Children Aged 6 to 12?

Understanding What Lies Behind the Struggle

You’ve watched your child stare blankly at their homework. Maybe they read a paragraph five times and still can’t tell you what it means. Or maybe the math problem makes them groan before they even attempt it. As a parent, it’s hard not to take it to heart — and even harder when all you want is to help them succeed and feel confident.

Comprehension isn’t just about paying attention or trying harder. It’s a complex skill that involves language, memory, focus, and emotional regulation. When something’s off in any of these areas, children may struggle — and that struggle rarely looks the same from one child to the next.

The Multi-Layered Nature of Comprehension

One of the key challenges in helping a child who struggles with comprehension is that the root causes are often invisible. You don’t see what’s happening in their brain when they’re reading or solving a science problem. But if we could peek beneath the surface, you’d often find that difficulties fall into a few interconnected categories:

1. Language Processing Issues

If your child misunderstands sentence structures, has limited vocabulary, or struggles to follow verbal instructions, comprehension will naturally be harder. Language underpins all subjects — not just reading. Even math problems these days come with long written instructions that require a strong grasp of nuance.

Some children also struggle with auditory processing: they hear the words but have trouble making sense of them in real-time. For these kids, listening to explanations repeatedly — especially in familiar, engaging formats — can help reinforce understanding. This is one reason transforming written lessons into audio content, which some tools like the Skuli App allow, works so well during everyday moments like car rides or bath time.

2. Working Memory and Cognitive Load

Working memory is like a mental sticky note — it's how we hold and manipulate information in our minds. If a child’s working memory is weak, reading a long paragraph can feel like juggling with too many balls in the air. They may understand the beginning of the sentence but forget it by the time they reach the end. Holding multiple steps of a math solution? Also overwhelming.

When the brain gets overloaded, comprehension shuts down. You can help by breaking tasks into smaller chunks, reviewing lessons more than once, or using personalized activities to make learning more digestible. In fact, creating custom learning exercises tailored to your child’s pace and strengths — rather than handing them a full textbook chapter — can dramatically ease this mental burden.

3. Emotional or Stress-Related Blocks

Stress is often invisible, but it’s a powerful barrier to comprehension. A child who feels anxious about school — worried they’ll fail, or frustrated after repeated confusion — will naturally have a reduced capacity to process information. It’s not laziness; it’s survival mode.

If your child repeatedly says “I’m bad at school” or shows signs of low motivation, take those words seriously. They’re not excuses — they’re signals. Addressing the stress itself, perhaps through play, movement, or reignite-their-motivation, can sometimes do more than hours of tutoring.

4. Attention and Focus Challenges

In classrooms full of distractions and subjects that change every 45 minutes, sustaining focus is a real skill — and some kids need extra support building it. Attention struggles often masquerade as comprehension difficulties. If a child drifts off halfway through an explanation, they won’t understand — even if they could have, had they been able to stay focused.

Try not to interpret zoning out as disobedience. Instead, experiment with the format: does your child engage better through movement? Through interactive conversations? For many children, especially those with focus difficulties, play-based learning can anchor attention more effectively than passive activities. Even turning school content into personalized stories — adventures that use your child’s name and interests — can drastically improve their ability to follow and retain information.

Turning Moments of Confusion into Paths of Discovery

Too often, comprehension challenges become family power struggles. One parent told me how her son would turn red with frustration every time she tried to explain a lesson. “He just shuts down,” she said. “It’s like he's built a wall.” That wall is real, and it’s telling us he needs a different way in.

That’s why adapting the delivery of learning is just as important as the content itself. Some families have found relief by using tools that invite children to become active players in their own learning — not just passive learners. One mom shared how snapping a photo of a lesson and turning it into a quiz with 20 personalized questions (a feature her family discovered in Skuli) brought her daughter into the process with curiosity rather than resistance.

Small changes in how learning feels — more like exploration than evaluation — can rebuild a child’s trust in their ability to understand.

Finding the Right Rhythm for Your Child

No one-size-fits-all solution exists, but neither does your child’s struggle have to remain a mystery. Rebuilding comprehension begins when we slow down and view learning through their eyes. Ask:

• When do they seem most engaged? (Morning, after movement, while drawing?)
• How do they react to different formats — reading, listening, quizzing, dramatizing?
• What emotional state are they in when learning feels easier?

With gentle experimentation and ongoing observation, you’ll begin to see cracks in the wall—points where understanding begins to blossom. You might even find that learning doesn’t have to feel like homework at all, especially if you know how to choose the right app that fits your child's style.

You're Not Alone in This

Helping a child understand something they find difficult isn’t only about repetition. It’s about tuning into their mindset, decoding their signals, and sometimes shifting how we teach entirely. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, that doesn't mean you're failing. You're parenting — and learning, right alongside them.

When the journey gets tough, remember: comprehension is not a destination reached in one leap. It's made of tiny, courageous steps — many of which begin with you seeing your child clearly, and believing there's a way forward.