On 6/25/09, Mom and Teacher wrote:

>
> Her step Mom just called to let me
> know they took her to the eye doctor and she has 20/20
> vision. They also realized she doesn't know her
> letters!?!?!?!
>
> The only letters I am aware of her getting confused were
> the b and d. Her dad is dyslexic, ADHD and had a learning
> disability as a child. Can it take until a child is 6 or
> 7 before something like dyslexia or LD to show up?
>
> Thanks for any imput!
>

Hi,

The first step I would take would be to take your daughter
to a developmental optometrist to determine if she has
problems with her vision skills. Yes, she apparently has 20/20
vision, but the standard eye exams rarely uncover the sort of
vision problems that cause a child to struggle with reading.
Vision therapy is likely to be the prescribed treatment.

Furthermore, this sort of vision problem tends to run in
families, so her dad probably had them also. The reason that
first grade started out well was because she could memorize
the words she needed to know and because you worked with her
on letters and sounds. When the memory load became excessive,
as it did by second grade, she became defensive and started to
resist reading, no doubt aware that she was starting to fall
behind her peers.

This is all normal, expected behavior for a child with a
problem with binocular vision skills. Once you fix it,
probably with vision therapy, she will be able to learn the
phonics she needs, but then you will have to ensure that
someone actually sits down with her and makes sure she gets
the phonics instruction that she's failed to absorb until now.
That too, is normal for a kid with a vision skills problem.
They can be quite resistant to phonics instruction because of
the visual confusion they experience when attempting to read.

The link below will take you to a much more extensive
discussion of the vision issues on my website at
www.ontrackreading.com

Rod Everso

OnTrack Reading-The Vision Piece (of the Dyslexia Puzzle)

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