Approximately 2 out of every 10 children of school age struggle to read. While a good number of these children suffer from learning disabilities or dyslexia, a good percentage of children with struggling to read have perfectly normal phonetic awareness and language processing skills. In reality, for many, it's their vision that is inhibiting their ability to read.
Proper eyesight is vital to the ability to read. First off, children need to have adequate eyesight or visual acuity to be able to see clearly from a distance. Most vision checks done at school are designed to check this using the standard 20/20 eye chart. Unfortunately, this is all school vision exams are able to check while there are other aspects to eyesight that need to be checked as well.
In order to be truly successful in learning, additional visual skills are necessary. These skills include the capability to coordinate their eye movements as a team, to keep to a line of text without losing their place, to keep clear focus during reading and to make quick changes in focus from near to far. Children also need to be able to decipher and correctly process the stimuli they are seeing. A deficiency in any of these necessary abilities can cause great difficulty in school, especially in reading.
Sadly children with visual impairments often struggle unnecessarily since their vision can easily be fixed. Too frequently adults seek out more serious learning disabilities before examining eyesight.
Some of the specific vision abilities that are essential for learning include:
Tracking: the capability to track along a row of text engaging fine eye movements. Children suffering from difficulties with tracking often lose their place, skip words and have trouble comprehending text they are reading.
Convergence: the eyes' ability to work together and converge on the same object relaying a unified, focused image to the brain's vision center. About 10% of young children have eye teaming difficulties which can result in double vision, blurred vision and eye strain. Eye teaming problems can be fixed by a qualified eye doctor.
Vision Perception : a category of cognitive abilities that involve the capability to give meaning to and decipher the images that are viewed. These include visual distinction and memory skills that are essential for recognizing letters and words, spelling and spatial processing skills.
If your child is experiencing difficulty reading or writing, have a vision test done as soon as possible. Visit our optometry website www.dryeyecare.net to learn further about eye health or to book a vision exam.
