As students return to class for the second semester, many families focus on new academic goals for improved performance. Strengthening reading skills is often a common goal, but if your child struggles with reading, it may be about more than just comprehension or motivation. Often, the root of reading difficulties lies in how their eyes work together.
Good vision is more than just seeing clearly on an eye chart. Reading requires the eyes to perform complex movements and coordination, and these skills can’t always be corrected with glasses alone. Three of the most important visual skills for successful reading are eye teaming, eye tracking, and focusing. And fortunately, these skills can be built and improved through a structured, customized vision therapy program, giving students a real advantage in the classroom.
Eye Teaming
Eye teaming is the ability for both eyes to work together and aim at the same spot on a page. When this skill is weak, it can cause symptoms like double vision, eye strain, or losing your place while reading. Kids often avoid reading or get frustrated easily because it simply takes extra effort to keep both eyes aligned. Vision therapy helps strengthen eye teaming by using specialized exercises that train the brain and eye muscles to coordinate more efficiently. Over time, this helps reading become smoother and more comfortable.
Eye Tracking
Eye tracking is the ability to move the eyes smoothly across a line of text and quickly shift from one line to the next. Poor tracking can make reading feel choppy, like skipping words, re-reading sentences, or losing your place on the page. Through vision therapy, students practice controlled, precise eye movements, improving their tracking accuracy. Once this skill strengthens, it’s easier for them to read fluently and focus on understanding the story rather than just finding where they left off.
Focusing
Focusing, or accommodation, allows the eyes to shift between near and far distances and keep a clear image. If this skill is weak, switching from reading a book to looking at the board (or vice versa) can blur vision or cause headaches, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating. Vision therapy trains the eyes to adjust focus quickly and comfortably, making it easier for students to shift between classroom tasks without strain.
Explore Vision Therapy at Family Vision Development Center to Improve your Student’s Reading Skills
Second semester often brings more reading, longer homework assignments, and preparation for standardized tests, which place even greater demands on these three visual skills. A customized vision therapy program can give your child the visual tools to read more comfortably, stay focused longer, and feel more confident in the classroom. Our team has extensive training in a variety of advanced vision therapy techniques. After a comprehensive evaluation, we can develop a customized program to target your student’s specific concerns in order to improve their skills and increase their classroom success. Contact us at 630-862-2020 with any additional questions you might have, or to schedule an appointment today.
Family Vision Development Center is a full-service vision center offering innovative vision therapy services, sports vision therapy services, post-concussive vision rehabilitation, comprehensive vision exams for eyeglasses and contact lenses, management of ocular diseases including glaucoma, diabetes, macular degeneration and cataracts, and a state-of-the-art optical center offering the latest designs in eyewear. We are dedicated to keeping our patients comfortable and well-informed and we will explain every exam and procedure and answer all of your questions. We accept both scheduled and emergency appointments, and offer convenient financing and insurance options to ensure that high-quality vision care is available and affordable to all of our patients.