Reading Success, At Last!

         You’ve heard that when a child learns to read, it’s like a light going on, suddenly everything clicks, they are off and reading. Many of you have experienced this thrill as I have with my two oldest children.

          With my third child Timothy, I’ve been waiting, watching and working toward that day for the past 8 years. Now, at almost 15, it has finally happened. Timothy can read fluently, proficiently and accurately! I want to share our experience with you in the hopes that it will help you or someone you know to find the right answers.

          Because he was a boy, and we all know that oftentimes boys are late bloomers, I didn’t start worrying about Timothy until he was around 10 years of age. I read articles and talked to homeschool experts, including Dorothy Moore at length. She really encouraged me to wait and not push Timothy, as boys don’t fully mature until 12 – 14. Though this fact is true, a concerned parent doesn’t just ignore signs and symptoms and so, while waiting and working with him, I continued investigating.

I researched, consulted with reading experts, bought and used seven reading programs, bought books too numerous to mention, investigated every avenue I found. I investigated learning problems and disabilities, dyslexia, ADD/ADHD, and vision therapy. I enrolled Timothy in a home-use program with phone consultation with no improvement. Daily I prayed, “Lord, please give me answers! Show me how to help our son.” Daily, we continued to work on phonics using Phonics Tutor CD-ROM.

We went down the dyslexia road for a while, reading everything I could find. None of the exercises or therapies recommended worked for Timothy and he didn’t quite fit all the descriptions of dyslexia.

When he was 13 I took Timothy to a M.D.-ophthalmologist who preformed a “functional eye exam.”  We were told that he had 20/20 vision and that everything was normal in every way.

It was back to the drawing board for me. I looked into Lindamood-Bell learning process, visual mapping, and bought a remedial phonics program “guaranteed to help the older non-reader” and a few more books, and again I talked to experts who said “it isn’t unusual for a boy to not develop until 14 or 15.” Meanwhile I continued to pray.

I was getting desperate, Timothy was 14 ½ and I could well imagine the problems if my son never learned to read. Homeschool time was intensive, because I had to read literally everything to him and I knew that he needed to learn to read information for himself. His self-esteem was also suffering badly. Grandparents, siblings and friends were asking me "What are you doing for Timothy?" In my “mothers heart” I knew something was wrong and that this problem would not just improve with time.

Early this year I did an in depth Internet search for reading difficulties. Everything I found pointed me back to a vision problem. But how could that be when Timothy had a full vision exam that showed no problems just 15 months ago?

        Here’s what I learned… Sight is being able to see, we are born with it. Vision, is the ability to understand what we see, it is a learned process. Eyesight is measured with the Snellen chart and 20/20 means that you can see the letters on the chart clearly while standing 20 feet away. “Vision involves the ability to take incoming visual information, process that information and obtain meaning from it.” (Donald Getz, O.D.) Since vision is learned it can be learned improperly. A child may say he sees just fine, but what do they have to base it on? This is the way they have always seen and don’t know anything different.  

        I found that there are seven visual abilities that must all be working together to be able to receive information through their eyes: 20/20 acuity is only one. Accommodation or focus is the ability to maintain focus over a long period of time (blurring). Eye Teaming is the two eyes working together (fatigue and loss of comprehension). Eye Movement means the eyes are moving from left to right smoothly and together (loosing place in a paragraph). Visual Perception, eye-hand coordination and visual memory complete the list.

During my Internet search I found two O.D.-optometrists specializing in vision therapy in the Sacramento area and a crosscheck with our vision care plan showed that one of them was covered by our insurance. During a routine exam the doctor discovered that Timothy had specific problems in focusing, fusion, tracking and alignment, diagnosed as Ocular Motor Dysfunction (deficiencies of saccadic and/or pursuit movements).

Since I was an “educated parent,” meaning I had researched vision therapy and knew what it involved and since we had to drive nearly two hours, they started vision therapy that day during their lunch hour. (Usually they give you two weeks to research, watch a video and consult with your spouse.) During the evaluation, the therapist showed me exactly where Timothy’s problems were and how they affected reading. Tears came to my eyes when I saw how difficult these exercises were for him. Timothy then spent an hour in therapy (while I watched a video on vision) then we were given four exercises to do for one hour each day for the next two weeks. The doctor also  prescribed reading glasses, which he had to wear full time for one month, to start forcing his eyes to focus properly and work together.

The doctor never blamed me, though he did say that he wished he had seen Timothy at 9 years of age. I felt terrible that something like this had been the problem all along and I hadn’t seen it. The doctor told me that he sees many children whose parents were told by an M.D. that there was nothing wrong and told that vision therapy is “hocus pocus.” (Ophthalmologists aren’t trained to look for these things. They look for medical/surgical problems.) He also shared that he is helping with legislation that will require children be screened for near-point vision, eye motility and teaming problems several times during their school experience.

Timothy had eight sessions with the vision therapist, we worked together for an hour each day and he started a home computer program at the third visit. Meanwhile we continued with the Phonics Tutor computer program. Around the fifth session, I noticed that reading was becoming easier; I also noticed that Timothy was initiating the home therapy exercises, volunteering to read, and changing in subtle ways.

We returned to the doctor for a checkup and received this report: Focusing went from less than half a unit to two units. Fusion ranges that were- in 6/ out 7 are now in 22/out 24 “a huge improvement.” A tracking exercise that took 2 minutes and 57 seconds at the beginning now took 31 seconds to complete. The doctor said, “You have done an incredible job, I am very pleased.”

Now, Timothy reads a chapter in the Bible out loud to us with ease (he’s in Revelation). He reads signs, stories to his little sister, the instructions in his math book and anything I ask him to. His self-confidence is improved, and he is no longer worried that the teacher will ask him to read in Sabbath School. I feel that the reason he was able to read so quickly is that once the focusing and fusing problems were fixed, the phonics and reading we had continued with all clicked in together. So don't ever stop trying. We are so thankful that God led us to the answers for our son!

           I realize that Timothy still has lots of work ahead of him, and he may never “enjoy” reading like the rest of us do, but now he has the ability, his visual processes have been retrained and he can now develop to his full God-given potential.

        I know that vision therapy is not the answer to every child’s learning problem. Your child may have dyslexia, learning problems, ADD/ADHD, be a late bloomer or something else altogether. I want to encourage you to listen to what your “mothers heart” is telling you! Don’t stop looking for answers they are out there. Pray that God will guide you in your search for answers. ~Judy

 © 2002