<p>Hi I have worked in education in the UK for the last 40 years. I am a biologist who got very frustrated with working with intelligent young people who could not read ( and write) fast enough for them to be able to really show what they were capableof. many of them got verytired when they read, often slowed down to a point where it was almost a pointless activity. Or it became so mechanical that they could not make sense of what theyhad read.
Funnily if they had it read to them ,they could understand and remember quite well. Many brilliantly well.
The issue seems to be that of the way their eyes had got between the words and their meaning. There was no evidence of a connection with any visual faults with this group of students. No evidence of hearing deficit.. It seems to be a problem of staring at white paper for to long. Their eyes seem not able to cope with it.<br>
The effects are various, from aching eyes, aching heads , nausea.. but what usually seems to happen is that they develop strategies which 'takes them away from reading'.
The computer screen though seems to be a godsend for them. It can be adjusted to suit them. I started working on this when an excellent student (18 years old) first had to deal with a whiteboard when the teacher was using a green felt tip pen.. He just panicked</p>
<p>And came to see me in an emotional mess, wondering what to do..
I would like to know how parents and students in the US relate to these ideas?</p>
<p>You are describing classic cases of Scotopic Sensitivity.</p>
<p>The use of colored filters either in the eyeglasses or with a colored transparent plastic film that can be placed over the text being read often produce miraculous improvement in reading skills. Sometimes, people with this difficulty improve their reading skill using the filters to the point that they do not need to rely on them all of the time. The color filter that works for one person will not necessarily work for another. The teacher or therapist needs to have the student try various colors and/or combinations until a good solution is encountered.</p>
<p>One of my nieces has this problem. She absolutely cannot read anything printed on vibrantly colored paper. White paper is not as difficult, but the print must be very clear. Something that has been photocopied from a photocopy of a photocopy is illegible to her. She has received testing accommodations from her school and the state where she lives so that she can use the color filters when taking all of her exams.</p>
<p>The student who can’t “see” green pen on a white board needs to figure out which color(s) he can see. Then he can speak with the instructor about this specific disability and ask for an appropriate accommodation. Most likely, the instructor will be happy to use a different color of marker.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention that typeface/font style and size can also matter. This is easy to fix with a computer, but you can’t change the typeface something that has been printed out on paper like a book.</p>