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Getting children ready to go back to school

Summer seems to have just started, but the new school year is only a month away. Many of us get ready for this time by making sure our kids have the right clothes, books and school supplies to start the year off right, but we forget to make sure that our kid’s eyes are working well so that learning in school is easy, comfortable, and fun!

The back to school season is a great time to schedule your child’s eye health and vision exam. Optometrists are able to make sure that not only is your child seeing as clear  as possible, but that all of their other visual skills are working properly to handle the demands of the new school year.

"Reading is Fun" Photo Courtesy of John-Morgan on Flickr

“Reading is Fun” Photo Courtesy of John-Morgan on Flickr

The following are some of the important visual skills necessary for learning in the classroom:

  • Visual acuity — The ability to see clearly at any distance. Seeing 20/20 is only one portion of all of the visual skills necessary for classroom success, but sometimes the only area that is assessed by typical “vision screenings.”
  • Eye Tracking — The ability to follow with the eyes a slow moving object such as the teacher moving around the front of the classroom and the ability for the eyes to follow along a line of print while reading without skipping or re-reading
  • Focusing Flexibility- the eyes ability to maintain focus on objects in the distance and at near as well as shift focus quickly from point to point.
  • Eye teaming — The skill needed to aim both eyes together at the same time.  This is a needed skill for lining the eyes up while reading across of page of print and also to have the very high level of depth perception needed for sports.
  • Eye-hand coordination — The skill needed to coordinate the visual system and the motor system when writing, copying, or playing sports.
  • Visual perception — The skill needed to sort, understand and remember information that is coming into the visual system.

Making sure all of these areas are working at the highest level will help ensure that your child has a successful school year.

~By Lisa Weiss, OD, FAAO