Do your children have reading difficulties?

When the elder of my two sons was in standard four, my wife and I noticed that some of his sentences copied from the blackboard seemed to have many mistakes, sometimes with words left out. Initially, I thought he was careless. So I talked to him, asked him whether he had problems sleeping at night, whether he was sleepy in class and whether he was too tired. When all the answers were in the negative, I asked him why he copied things wrongly. He admitted he could not seem to see some words very well and had to move nearer to the blackboard very often but the teacher was not happy with his walking to and fro. That was when I realized he had an eyesight problem. I approached the class teacher to tell him what I had found out about my son and requested for his assistance to put my son nearer to the blackboard. In truth, his eyesight had deteriorated a lot, according to the optician who examined him. I had always taken a keen interest in his development, yet I had not realized he had such a problem earlier. Still, it was not too late to remedy the situation and his progress continued.

Affected vision could lead to reading abilities and progress if not attended to. Parents, just like me, are sometimes not aware of their children’s problems until it had reach a certain level. This is so as our children do not understand their problem and so do not complain about it.

Besides short-sightedness, there are children with poor eye coordination. When eyes cannot coordinate well, words cannot be seen in the same manner as ordinary eyes. The words may appear reversed and spelt backwards. As a teacher I have seen weak pupils with alphabets written backwards or reversed, spelling of a word never seeming to be constantly correct even when a lot of exercises had been given.There are also children who need to use their fingers to guide their eyes to the words while reading. This is another indication of poor eye coordination.Some children read with their heads at an angle, one eye closer to the reading material than the other eye. Ihis could lead to lazy eye problem or is due to poor eye coordination. Parents should always consult a specialist in this field.

Reading difficulties arise not only due to eyesight deterioration. It could also be caused by problems in decoding words which means an ability to break down words into parts to form sounds. An inability to decode words may result in great effort on the part of the child to read. This necessity for so much effort in order to read may drain the child of energy to read further and so obstructs the desire to read more.
Then there is the problem of auditory perception. This has to do with the ear hearing but not able to discriminate the sounds heard. Perhaps, it could be the result of an earlier ear infection. It could be a birth defect.

There are also children who are hyperactive as well as having attention deficit problems. Parents must understand such problems do occur and take measures to overcome them, such as taking them to the appropriate specialists for advice and further action where necessary. I have seen such a child overcome her hyperactivity and develop well as a result of her parents’ correct concern and proper handling of the problem.

Whatever the problem, if parents find that everything has been done and the reading progress is too poor, especially when the IQ is average or above average, then it is time to seek medical help, to search for a therapist immediately to assist your child to be trained to overcome his/her problem. You precious child needs your help badly.

Act as early as possible and search for the appropriate therapist for your child to raise his capabilities or overcome his difficulties. A lot of help is at hand.

Well, as I have always said, the health of your marriage and your home is important for your happiness and the growth of your children. Here I wish to share the knowledge that when problems arise possibly from birth or genes, parents sometimes tend to put the blame on each other. As a result, the home becomes a battle ground and love is lost. I personally know of a male relative who divorced his wife when they found their child mentally retarded at birth. It was a great wrong. Did it actually mattered whose fault it was? Did divorce solved their precious child’s problem? Certainly not! In fact, the poor child was left without a parent with the time to look after his welfare. The problem could not have been solved had the cool grandparents not come into the picture to help the poor child.

Child defect or not, we ought to face problems with the right perspective. Whether it has anything to do with genes or not, the problem is just one of the problems we have to face in life. Today, it is a problem. Tomorrow, an answer to the problem can be found and happiness returns. Change is inevitable. However, change and be favourable or unfavourable. There is no benefit in blaming anybody. The accusing finger will not help anyone to solve any problem. It can only distract one or both of the parents from the right action to help the child. What is more fruitful is to get together and lovingly think of the possible actions to help the beloved child overcome the problem. United on the path of love to assist the child is the right decision to make. That is true and this knowledge comes from the teaching of Sri Sri Ravi Shanker, the founder of The Art of Living Foundation.