How do vision skills affect schoolwork?

 Here is some great info I came across on vision skills and why they are so important to be successful at school. I think this particular Q&A covers much of what troubles Will in the classroom.

Q.   What are the vision skills necessary for classroom achievement which can be provided through vision therapy?

A.   It has been estimated that 75 to 90 percent of all learning in the classroom comes to the student either wholly or partially via the visual pathways, the child cannot develop to his fullest potential.

There are numerous learned skills that the child must develop in order to achieve in the classroom.

The most obvious skill is that the child must already have learned to coordinate his two eyes together. If he has difficulty in this area, he might be perceiving overlapping images or -- if he is not perceiving in this manner -- he is using an abnormal amount of effort to overcome the coordination problem, thus reducing performance.

In addition, he must have learned accurate, smooth versional eye movements and quick, accurate saccadic movements so that he can point his eyes where he will with a minimum of effort.

Focusing ability must be adequately developed so that it can be maintained over extended periods of time. Also, accommodative flexibility must be present so that attention can be shifted quickly, smoothly and effortlessly from book to chalkboard and back to book.

Form perception must be developed so that he can make the many fine discriminations necessary to distinguish one letter from another and one word from another.

Span of perception must be wide enough so that he can read in terms of ideas rather than letter-by-letter or word-by-word.

The left-to-right directionality pattern must be firmly established so that eye movements are carried out in the conventional direction for the English language.

Visualization is one of the most important visual skills, and it is vital for reading, spelling, and particularly, abstract thinking.

In brief, these are some of the visual skills needed for success in school. But I would like to emphasize that since all of these skills are learned, it is possible to train them to a more highly skilled degree.

So, now that we have the diagnosis we need to get diligient about the the vision therapy. Setting the time aside for it has proven harder than I would have hoped. We got some done before school this morning, which was a good thing. I created a sticker chart, I just need to find a good reward for him that will motivate him to want to do it. You would think just making school like easier would be enough motivation! ;) Maybe not for a 10 yr old!