I brace myself each morning to look at the headlines in the newspaper. This morning was another shock, but in a profound way. The article on the top front page said, “Eye tests now a school requirement.” Quoted: “Eighty percent of learning happens through the visual system.”
This is near/far vision screening. It will test for lazy eye, the need for glasses for reading or distance, and any other issues that hamper a student from learning to read successfully.
Parents, do you realize that most public schools only test for distance? We simply do not read a book twenty feet away.
Do you realize that this is the struggle I face with challenged/failing students of all ages (4 – adult) throughout our country?
SOI programs find vision problems in a great number of cases and yet parents and teachers never even suspected (SOI Systems). The juvenile and adult offender population I work with has numerous problems with vision and years of school failure. They had no idea that vision was a major part of the problem that robbed them of the ability to read well.
As parents, if you are concern
ed about your child’s success in school, seek out a developmental vision optometrist on this web page. It will provide you with a list of doctors in your area.
If this is truly the social media for issues, let this post and the article from the Register Guard be shared over and over again. I am stunned at the name “No Child Left Behind.” We are leaving thousands and thousands of students behind because no one knew that the two eyes cannot pull together at near-point to even read the questions in the mandatory state assessment.
I have been doing this for 27 years and it is getting worse. Reading is diminishing and games on computer, tablets, and cell phones are in. Eyes do not need to work together with the same precision when a person is playing games. Reading requires great visual precision. There are many educators that know what I am saying is true.
This simple screening and help provided is long, long overdue. Schools cannot be solely responsible. We insist on mandatory shots for children or they cannot enter school and yet they walk through the door to start kindergarten ill-prepared for the visual demands of learning.
Speak up. Speak up louder and louder again.
Learn more about SOI’s school programs here!
written by: Diane Hochstein, President of SOI Service Company
Woolington, Josephine. (2014, July 30). Eye tests now a school requirement. The Register Guard. Page A1.
