Reading issue - moving/floating print

[JWSJ]

Our ds7 is at a 2nd grade reading level. He is transitioning from larger print to smaller print chapter books.

The smaller print gives him trouble. When he reads the print moves/floats. This is due largely to the smaller words being bunched up closer together.

Larger print popular chapter books are unavailable at the local library. Using index cards to block out the before and/or after lines helps but is annoying and hard for a 7yo. He is getting discouraged.

We've had his vision checked - it's normal. He is a visual/spatial learner - we're told this is a common issue for that learning style.

Any recommendations are appreciated!

[MyThreeSons]

this can sometimes be helped by using colored plastic overlays.

[kaylk in tx]

the ones from the irlen institute are very pricey. we used colored transpanrency sheets available from office supply stores.

this article suggests that blue is the better color choice.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n13_v138/ai_8956496?tag=rbxcra.2.a.2

HTH

[transientChris]

You said you had the vision checked but was is done in a way to check for convergence problems? My dd (15 next weeK) had something wrong with her vision that I noticed ever since she was walking. She was taken once a year to eye doctors for probably four years. Before she could read, I noticed that she bumped into corners. After she was reading, she could read difficult words in large print and had problems with easier words in small print. I finally started calling opthalmologists in my city at that time and talked to receptionist. I found an opthalmologist that specialized in eye muscular problems. I took her to see him and he immediately figured out that her eyes were not focusing together at close ranges. One eye would swing away. This caused double vision and it is very hard to read close print with double vision. She got prisms with which she did exercises and also a prescription for glasses with a prism lens with a bit of far-sighted correction. Within six months, her eyes were focusing much better together. None of these other doctors ever found this since they never tested for it. Some just wanted to slap the label LD on her when there was an actual problem with her eyes that could be greatly improved.

[Twinmom]

I second Christina on this. Your child can check out 20/20 vision or better on the traditional "school tests" and still have a visual processing disorder. That's what happened to DD, and it cost us a couple years of frustration while we tried to read without remediating the disorder. Convergence problems are one type...there are many others. My DD tests out with actually better than 20/20, but she has serious ocular motor and visual perception issues that caused her to flip letters, be unable to "track" across a line of text (sounds like your "floating" to me!), amongst other things. An evaluation with a developmental optometrist landed her in vision therapy, where she is making great strides in terms of both her reading and confidence!

You can find a developmental optometrist here: www.covd.org (http://www.covd.org). Also, do a search on the special needs board for "vision therapy" and you'll find loads of info on the subject.

Good luck.

ETA: Your child is at a typical age for this to be diagnosed...when kids move to smaller text, it becomes much more obvious. They say that around 80% of the kiddos in LD classrooms actually have visual processing problems...sad, because it can be almost completely remediated through vision therapy, landing most of those kids right back into regular classrooms!

[WendyK]

The only other thing I can think to do is photo copy the pages and enlarge them slightly. I do this on my home scanner sometimes. Obviously that is a little costly and tedious though.

I would definitely look into a pediatric opthalmology specialist though if you have not already. Just having a simple vision test won't catch other issues. My son checked out fine vision wise through a simple vision test, but when I brought him to the specialist they discovered issues nobody else caught. He wears glasses now and I was told that when he is about 8 or 9 he probably won't need them anymore. If I had not brought him when I did he may have been stuck in glasses forever.