Raising Smarter Children

When my daughter, Erin, a Pediatrician and co-founder of this RaisingSmarerChildren.com blog, was in the first grade, her teacher called me in and said she wanted her to repeat the first grade due to reading problems.

I was horrified as you can imagine, because Erin could read at age 4, and I am a reading specialist.   What was I missing?   

Fortunately, and I believe there are no coincidences, the mother of a child I was coaching in faster learning strategies, told me her son was taking vision therapy. She said her son had visual perceptual problems that weren’t picked up in the school vision exam on the distance eye chart, and she discovered he didn’t see the printed page the way he should.

Just today, I read a story on Fox Business News about the NFC West champion wide receiver for the Arizona cardinals, Larry Fitzgerald, who credits vision therapy for his success.

He says, like I have been saying, teaching and writing about  for just over twenty years now, “that most people don’t know that there are over 15 visual skills that every person needs to succeed in reading, learning, sports and life.  Reading at 20/20 distance eyesight is just one of those skills”.

My daughter, Erin, who had vision therapy in the first grade, was more than just lucky.  When she was finished the therapy, she read well above grade level.  She too, credits her much of her dream of becoming a medical doctor to the vision therapy she received as a child.  Had her visual perceptual problems not been solved right then, she may have struggled with reading all the way through school.

If you’re wondering whether your child needs vision therapy, I’ve worked with the College Of Optometrists in Vision Development and The Optometric Education Program Foundation to create the Eye-Q Reading Inventory.  It is a series of questions you will want to ask your child after they read a page or so to you.

As your child reads, don’t correct them or say anything.  You might even want to tape record your child reading, so you have a perfect record of how they read. Then, do as instructed on the Inventory.

You’ll want to look for things that most vision screenings miss, such as do they skip lines when they read, do they miss punctuation at the end of a sentence, do they see a word like ‘the’ and call it what, or pull a word from the line below or the line below into the sentence they are reading.

If your child gets tired quickly when reading, this is a signal that you need to find out more.  Kids read more than we ever did, and if you’re child is getting tired now, or just doesn’t want to read, it’s not due to laziness.  Reading may actually be painful for your child.

You won’t know until you ask your child how it actually feels when reading.  Most kids who struggle to read, see the child sitting next to them finish the same assignment sooner, and think to themselves that they are ‘dumb’. 

Unless you find out how your child sees the printed page, and how reading feels,  your child can easily be labeled with ADHD, dyslexia, or fall through the cracks at school, struggling forever.

The implications for kids who struggle to read are endless; fights at home about homework, poor grades, acting out in class, withdrawing, dropping out of school, and even  juvenile delinquency. 

If you want to know whether your child needs vision therapy, just like Larry Fitzgerald and my daughter did, my advice is to take your child to a developmental optometrist.  These doctors are specially trained to examine your child’s eyes for health, just like any optometrist, but they will also look for hidden visual or perceptual problems which can affect reading, learning and sports.

You can find a list of these doctors at COVD.org or OEP.org .  The American Optometric Association recommends eye exams beginning in infancy.  You may also want to visit InfantSee.org where former President Jimmy Carter talks about how standard vision screenings missed critical eye problems for his two grandchildren, and what types of exams are better for your child.

If your child struggles in any way with reading, you’ll save years of tears and pain by getting to the real cause now, so be sure and have that special eye exam today.

If you gave your child the Eye-Q Reading Inventory, be sure and take it to your developmental optometrist, so you can provide more specific information.

Thank you to Larry Fitzgerald for speaking out on vision therapy, and the little known facts about visual skills which every child needs for reading success.

Remember, every child is smart in their own way.

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Mavredakis, M.D.

Remember to visit http://www.HowToLearn.com/coachingstudents2.html for back to school  strategies that show your child ‘how to learn’ for a lifetime of learning success.