"Progressing With Difficulty" in English: What It Means

by Rachel Esco November 06, 2026

"Progressing with difficulty" is not a verdict. It's an early warning, and it arrives while there's still plenty of time to act.

Under Growing Success, Ontario's assessment and reporting policy, elementary progress reports go home between October 20 and November 20, so many families are reading them right now. I'm an OCT-certified English teacher with 14 years (and counting) in education, and I tutor reading and writing online for students in grades 4 to 12. Below, I'll explain what the phrase means, what the teacher's comment is telling you, and what to do in the next 30 days.

What "progressing with difficulty" means in English

The fall progress report doesn't use letter grades or percentages. Instead, the teacher picks one of three ratings for each subject:

• Progressing very well
• Progressing well
• Progressing with difficulty

"Progressing with difficulty" means your child is finding some of this year's expectations in the Ontario Language curriculum hard so far, whether in reading, writing or oral communication. The rating rests on a few weeks of school. It isn't a mark, and it doesn't follow your child as a record of failure.

What it does tell you is that the teacher has noticed something specific and wants you to know before the first report card. That report card comes later in the year and does include marks: letter grades in grades 1 to 6, percentages in grades 7 and 8. Giving families time to help is the whole point of the progress report.

Learning skills

The progress report also rates six learning skills: responsibility, organization, independent work, collaboration, initiative and self-regulation. Each gets an E (excellent), G (good), S (satisfactory) or N (needs improvement).

Read these next to the English rating. If English says "with difficulty" but the learning skills are strong, the trouble is usually one reading or writing skill. If organization or independent work is also low, part of the struggle may be getting started and staying on track, and English shows that more than most subjects. My post on these 7 habits that prevent higher grades in school covers the work-habit side in more detail.

What the comment usually means

When parents in Thornhill share a November progress report with me, the comment beside "progressing with difficulty" is the most useful part of the page. Look for words like "organization," "supporting ideas" or "inferring." Those words name the skill the teacher is worried about, and that's where we start.

Teacher comments are short, so here's a quick guide to the words that come up most:

• "Organization" or "organizing ideas": your child has ideas, but their writing jumps around or runs together without clear paragraphs.
• "Supporting ideas" or "using evidence": they give an answer but don't back it up with details from the text.
• "Inferring" or "making inferences": they understand what the text says on the surface, but struggle to work out what it suggests.
• "Comprehension": they can read the words but don't always understand or remember what they've read.
• "Conventions": spelling, punctuation and grammar are getting in the way of their writing.
• "Next steps": read this part twice. It's the teacher telling you what to practise.

If the comment is vague, bring that question to the parent-teacher interview. Ask the teacher to show you a piece of work that led them to choose "with difficulty." Seeing it will tell you more than any rating. For more on how Ontario schools work with families, People for Education, an independent Ontario organization that researches public schools, is a good place to read up before you go.

The next 30 days

You don't need a big intervention. You need a short, steady plan that matches the skill the teacher named. Here's what I suggest:

1. Week 1: Talk, don't panic. Tell your child what the report says in plain, calm words. Ask what feels hard in English right now. Kids tend to know what's tripping them up.
2. Week 1: Meet the teacher. Parent-teacher interviews tend to happen around this time. Ask for one skill to focus on and one piece of work that shows it.
3. Weeks 2 and 3: Practise that one skill. Ten to fifteen minutes, a few times a week. If it's inferring, ask "how do you know?" after you read together. If it's organization, have your child plan a paragraph out loud before writing it.
4. Week 4: Look at new work. Compare a fresh piece of writing or reading response with the one the teacher showed you. Look for small changes, not perfection.
5. Keep in touch. A short note to the teacher a month later shows you're working together and gets you an update before the report card.

These 30 days aren't about fixing everything. They're about making sure the one skill the teacher flagged gets regular, focused practice.

What to skip

A few well-meant responses tend to backfire:

• Piling on workbooks. Pages of general practice rarely hit the skill the teacher named, and they make English feel like a punishment.
• Taking away reading for fun. If your child loves comics, graphic novels or sports magazines, keep them. Any reading they choose builds stamina.
• Treating it as a secret. Kids notice worried parents. A calm "this is something we'll work on together" helps far more than silence.

When an English tutor for kids helps

Sometimes a few weeks of practice at home is enough. Other times the gap is harder to pin down, homework turns into a nightly battle, or the same comment shows up again on the report card. That's when an English tutor for kids can help.

A tutor who's also a certified teacher reads your child's work the way their classroom teacher does, finds the skill behind the comment, and teaches it one-on-one until your child can do it alone. In my lessons, we start with the comment on the progress report and the work behind it, so every session targets what the teacher is looking for this year.

Lessons are online, so there's no driving, and your child works with the same teacher every time. If your child's progress report says "progressing with difficulty" in English, see how English tutoring for kids works, and we'll turn that early warning into a plan.

Keep reading

• How to Read EQAO Results
• The Learning X-Ray assessment

Not sure which skill sits behind the comment? The Learning X-Ray pinpoints where your child's reading and writing stand, so the next 30 days start in the right place.

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