inexpensive reading aid

What kind of improvements, specifically? Tracking, decoding, etc.? The Irlen people have that whole program devoted to this; I’m wondering what you’ve noticed. I’ve heard it helps with attention, too.

Here we go again. Trying for the 4th time to answer you! My replies keep going off into cyberspace!

I would say tracking. She has reasonable decoding skills. Her comments: “The type is clearer”, “The words/letters don’t move around”, “I don’t lose my place”, “I don’t get headaches as soon as I start reading”, “I understand what I read now”. The few other students this appears to help made similar comments, especially the words/letters not moving around. One student we tried coloured plastic with in conjunction with Learning 100 benefited minimally. After we referred him to an optometrist, he found out his eyes would not track in unison.

I would guess it probably does help with attention. It would be pretty hard to stay on task if you knew the activity was going to cause pain! Plus it must be sooo frustrating finding your place over and over and over….if you know you lost your place to begin with!

“The Irlen people have that whole program devoted to this”: are you referring to tracking or colour? I don’t know anything about Irlen. I’ve only had experience with Learning 100 and some old Frostig materials for tracking. Colour I try to incorporate as I can.

Coloured lenses and tinted overlays reduce the contrast between black print and white paper. Different colors change that contrast in different ways. Some people are extremely sensitive to that contrast (scotopic sensitivity), and those are the ones that are helped by colored overlays or colored lenses. Irlen (http://www.irlen.com ) is one well-known system that deals with this issue, but there are others also.

Nancy

Thanks for the info Nancy.

Has anyone ever looked at the frequency with which scotopic sensitivity occurs, does anyone check it out in students with reading difficulty, and who is qualified to do so? She spent several years at a school for children with learning disabilities, but no one tried using colour. I am at a small northern college. I’ve seen this with maybe 8 students, but we work with only a small fragment of the student population.

The comments about letters/words moving, and headaches would tie in with contrast students can’t handle. From trying to read some websites with horrible contrast (i.e. neon blue and red over black) I know I get the impression the letters move. I can’t read it, and tracking a line of type is a nightmare. Fortunately, I can turn off the webpage. Students don’t get to turn off their homework.

I have to say I am extremely skeptical about this whole thing. Every experiment trying to replicate Irlen results has come out negative — different supposedly qualified testers come up with completely different results for the same person. Thast means no, there is no place you can find a “qualified” tester or a consistent result. There seems to be some positive effect in glare reduction I think with light blue tint, but that is the only thing that has held up to investigation. The coloured lens idea seems to be about 10% fact to about 90% wishful thinking, placebo effect, and snake oil.

I am a mother of a 16 year old boy that has been is the LD/IEP program since 2nd grade and is currently several years below his grade level in reading. I am sure no teacher has ever tried colored sheet of plastic or colored lenses. What can I read or try to see if this will work with him.
Is there any testing that I can ask the school to do that would detect this.

thanks
mek

Well as far as I’m concerned I am a bit skeptical of the influence of specific colors. I know that some people including myself are bothered by lettters drifting about and that sort of thing. (Which makes me more skeptical as I am a very good reader.)

OTOH, I do think some kids will be helped by decreasing the contrast, say printing stuff on blue paper or at least an off white or gray. I don’t think this is a magical potion of some kind.

Also once you decrease the contrast, a nonreader or poor reader will not suddenly learn phonics, or other things he/she doesn’t know.
You are still left with solving the original problem.

BTW, I am always decreasing the contrast on the computer screen. I think the phenomena exists, I just don’t believe all the hookum about which colors work. It may be that some colors are more pleasing to the person and therefore more acceptable. I do not like blue blocker (bright amber) type sunglasses, while others swear by them.

—des

Actually, a complaint about letters moving around may not have anything to do with contrast. It’s more likely to be caused by a developmental vision delay. Anyone with this problem should see a board-certified developmental optometrist for evaluation (http://www.covd.org ). There is more information at http://www.childrensvision.com . Only if other vision problems had been ruled out would I try colored overlays or Irlen.

Unfortunately, developmental vision problems are not checked in regular eye exams. Many parents think vision cannot be a problem because an opthalmologist has given a child a clean bill of health. The truth is, a child can pass a regular eye exam and still have severe developmental delays in muscle control (convergence, accommodation, gross and fine saccades, etc.). Vision therapy is usually very successful for these types of problems. In fact, VT has been found so successful for convergence and accommodative problems that the field of opthalmology has co-opted “muscle re-training” for itself, under the label “orthoptics”. Orthoptics is a subset of the vision therapy practiced by developmental optometrists.

Nancy

there is a UK website which has details of a brand new coloured reading tool.

They are promoting it at the Education Show in the UK next month but email the Editor for details now:
[email protected]