Hi Maja,
I just finished reading most of the entries in the long thread below this which you started and no one suggested a possible vision problem.
I suspect your son has a problem with his binocular vision skills and recommend that you find a good developmental optometrist (one with an active vision therapy dept.) for an examination. A regular optometrist will generally not pick up on this.
Besides your son’s reading behavior, your own experience in not being able to finish tests is also consistent with a binocular vision problem. The problem, in my experience anyway, tends to run in families. For this reason, you should be on the lookout for a similar development in your younger children. I know one mother who has run all three kids through vision therapy and all showed significant reading improvement following the therapy. (The phonics programs are often essential components, as much of the phonics information learned easily by most first and second graders is missed by children experiencing vision problems.)
This is a very under-diagnosed (actually, un-diagnosed) problem among poor readers and is, in my opinion, prevalent among the lowest 5-15% of readers in a school. The key question I ask the parent of a struggling reader is, “Did you or your husband have trouble learning to read?” If the answer is “Yes,” the likelihood of a binocular vision problem is quite high, I feel.
Incidentally, this is a controversial area. You can learn more by searching past postings in here for “vision” or “vision therapy.” It is important that you find a vision therapy department that gets results, as indicated by satisfied parents.
Good luck……Rod
P.S. One reason you don’t hear much about this topic is that good vision therapy depts can be hard to find or distant. If one can’t access something, one tends to look for other means and explanations. I happen to have great access to a very effective vision therapy dept, and as a result have seen a lot of kids with binocular vision problems, so I speak from some experience.
Maja
Sensory Integration OT also addresses the vision problem. My daughter would cover 1 eye when she read, had tracking problems, etc. After 14 mos. of SI OT and LMB, she is doing terrific.