Midweek Mini: What a Stomachache Has to Do With Reading

Smart kids can have reading difficulties.

I want to say that again, because it runs counter to what a lot of parents and teachers believe.

A child can be genuinely gifted—curious, articulate, full of ideas—and still struggle to read. Not because something is wrong with their intelligence. But because reading isn’t natural. The brain wasn’t designed for it. And without the right instruction, even the brightest kids can miss critical foundational skills.

The tragedy is that we often don’t catch it early enough. A smart child finds ways to compensate—memorizing, using context, charming their way through. And by the time the gap shows up, it’s wider than it needed to be.

Here’s what makes it harder to spot: struggling readers don’t always look like struggling readers. Sometimes they look like behavior problems. The child who acts out before reading time, who becomes the class clown, who suddenly has a stomachache every morning. Avoidance is a coping strategy. And it works—until it doesn’t.

If a child in your life is bright but struggling with reading, trust what you’re seeing. Intelligence and reading ability are not the same thing.

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