vision problem or losing interest?

[chepyl]

DD 4.5 wants to read. She has begged for school for two years. Last year we did a letter a week, made a lap book for her alphabet and colored a lot.

 

This year,we are using a bunch of dollar workbooks now, when we finish we will use the r&s ABC books. She is currently using a sequencing.book and she does great with that. It is Curtis.g and pasting pictures in order. She is getting better at counting and associates numbers with a group of objects. By sight up to five, counts 6-10 but does.confuse numbers some.

 

She seems to struggle with letters. I say.seems, because she "seemed" to struggle with colors, but I realized she was just playing MC showing he personality! I asked her to point to the red block in a bunch.of blocks. Her finger hovered across the.blocks stopped over red, she turned her head to look at me, smiled, and without looking pointed to a different block!

 

So with reading.....we are using 100ez lessons, she get excited when we get it out. We will do the.same lesson three days in a row. One day she will get all the letter sounds, the next, she will co.fuse them all. With words, she will sound out the words perfectly, but when it comes time to blend, she will just say a random word. We will do it slowly together and she will get it.

 

Yesterday, I tried.the book in a different position. She said It was "too close" I moved it back and.then she struggled less. I have not noticed squinting or struggling to see anything. I thought I might try and get her eyes checked, bit how do they do that of she cannot id all the letters on the chart yet? Do they have a way to test.non-readers? Right now she still mixes up b, d, F, P, B,D, and other similar letters even when she.can.see them.

 

So...do I het her eyes checked, or is this just her being silly again??

[Stayseeliz]

Have you had her eyes checked? Everyone should have their childrens' eyes checked before starting schoolwork. I didn't take my older two until after they started homeschool work and I found out my daughter (6yo at the time) was almost legally blind in one eye. There were NO symptoms or clues that anything was wrong. We never would have known if I hadn't taken her. When we found this out we took the other two in and my then 2yo had issues as well. If you even suspect something I'd take her in!

 

Oh and yes they use symbols instead of letters for younger children. My DD3 got glasses at 2 years old!

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Well, I'm not sure about the vision, but I do know that I was still sweating about my youngest not being able to recognize/remember letters that we'd JUST talked about minutes before, and she was 5.5. I posted here and got lots of reassurance, but it was still several more months before things started to really click. It was literally the day AFTER I made the vision therapy appointment that she brought me a book to show me how she could read from it. So I don't think I'd worry too much about the reading right now. Easier said than done, though, I know :grouphug:

 

And in general, about vision, my family has a history of poor vision, so we start doing regular eye exams around 4-5.

[bobbeym]

If you even remotely suspect she might have vision problems, take her in and get her eyes checked. Most eye doctors have picture charts they use with the littles that can't read yet.

 

I've been an avid reader since age 3, but it took a teacher's note at age 12 to convince my parents something was wrong with my eyesight.

[gardenmom5]

has she ever had an eye exam? beyond what your ped does? and yes, every child should have a vision check by an eye dr early. infantsee.org has a program that strongly urges infants be checked before they are a year old as some things can affect their vision development. My mother expressed concerns about my eyes to the ped, but was dismissed. (granted, we're talking early 60's) My vision NEVER developed normally because by the time I finally saw an eye dr who would/could do anything /KNEW what to do about it, it was too late.

 

at this age, it could simply be, being silly. (annoying though).

 

If you decide to take her in, I would STRONGLY urge a developmental eye dr. vision that affects being able to read is so much more than near or far. It's tracking, convergance, and focus as well. a person can have issues in anyone of those areas, and be told their "vision is fine" because they are capable of seeing 20/20.

Edited August 29, 2012 by gardenmom5

[athena1277]

Both my kids wear glasses. We discovered that dd had a very bad lazy eye at 5yo. So bad that she could only see the biggest picture on the chart (size of the big E) with that eye. 4 years later we are finally done with patching, pending a check-up next month.

 

We took ds in at about 10 months since dd was going through so much. Turns out he is very far-sighted (much worse than normal for a young child). He has been wearing glasses since he was 13 months old.

 

All that to say that there are all kinds of things that can go wrong with a child's vision. Many of them will not be noticed for a long time unless you take them to a good doctor. I highly recommend a pediatric ophthalmologist. They know much more about children's eye development that generic optical shops.

[SKL]

I'd give it a look if I were you. See a developmental optometrist if possible. She sounds a lot like my daughter, who had significant vision issues.

 

They have a picture chart for preschoolers. But a word to the wise: ask to look over the chart first so you can tell your child the names of pictures she's never seen. The first one they showed my dd (then a little younger than 3) was a "telephone," but it was one of those old telephones that your great-great-grandma used to have. You know, with the pointy receiver that weighed five pounds. My kid had no idea what the heck it was, LOL.

 

Maybe other tots knew that was a "telephone" from having Curious George read to them, but my kid was allergic to books because of her vision issues. She wouldn't really look at the pictures.