What to Do When Your Child Guesses Words

Your child reads 'pony' for horse, or 'dad' for daddy, or looks at the picture and says something plausible. They are fast and confident, and the words are often close in meaning. That closeness is the tell: they are reading the context, not the letters.

Guessing is usually taught, not invented. Prompts like 'look at the picture' and 'what would make sense?' actively encourage it. They work beautifully on simple books with strong illustrations — and collapse entirely around age seven, when text gets harder and pictures disappear.

Cover the picture while reading the sentence. If the picture is giving the answer, the child is not practising anything.

Change your prompt. Replace 'what would make sense?' with 'what is the first sound?' — the second sends them to the letters, the first sends them to the story.

Use nonsense words. vop, zad, flim. They cannot be guessed or memorised, so they prove decoding is genuinely happening. Children usually find them funny, which helps.

If your child says 'pony' for horse, do not accept it because the meaning is close. Say 'check it — what does that word start with?' Meaning is the goal, but letters are the route, and allowing a near-miss teaches that approximation is acceptable.