Vision problem affects reading
Reading is not just identifying letters and words, and “vision” does not just refer to mechanical seeing. If your children struggle with reading, it could be the first hint of a vision problem. In fact, many children who experience frustration with learning to read may have undiagnosed visual problem.
In an early stage, your child learns to attach meaning to what he sees.For example, your child learns to associate the smiley face drawing with his idea of a human face and the feeling of relationship, the smiley face is just lines and dots on a page without such association.
If you see some of this red flags, you should consult a developmental optometrist to find out the potential issues that could interfere your child’s ability to read:
(1) the child cannot associate the shapes he sees with a meaningful idea or memory
(2) some of the mechanical skills that eyes use to collect information are not working quite right
(3) the child doesn’t “see” the same images other children see i.e. he cannot tell the difference between a “d” and a “b” and a “p” and a “q”.
(4) the child cannot consistently “read” from left to right, or he cannot track to the next line on a page.
Some children may merely have fuzzy focus, instead of going out to get a new table lamp, the problem might be corrected with glasses. Some may have mechanical visual issues as a result of the way their eye muscles work independently and/or together. Whereas some children have difficulty reading because they have perception difficulties –what they see does not “mean” the same to them as what other children see.
If your child seems to be having a hard time learning to read, before you further frustrate him with more homework, a trip to a developmental optometrist might be needed. It’s more than just evaluating your child’s performance on the 20/20 eye-chart, a developmental optometrist who understands the development of vision may suggest eye exercises or additional perception training that could make all the difference!
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