[senco-forum] Jerky eye movement

I am currently teaching a yr3 little girl – doing catch up with her – she
can read – and write and spell – but slowly.  Working hard – but her efforts
– and the hours we have done have not paid off as well as I would normally
have expected.

As usual – I recommended that parents got sight and hearing tests done –
hearing has still to be done – but she has just had her eye testing done –
and she has a “jerky eye” movement.

Now I have not knowingly taught anyone with this particular problem before
named by an optician – I’ve normally got eye movement sorted out quite
quickly – and I have not before had it identified as the problem after an
eye test – and I suspect that it must be quite severe for it still to be
showing up as the problem.

I actually think I see some up and down jerks too – as well as the
horizontal movement – if she reads without a book mark – we can move up and
down the line of reading as well – and she has a tendency to attack a new
word – with the right sound – but as an anagram – she doesn’t always start
at the beginning of the word – I am currently making her put her finger at
the beginning of a word if she doesn’t know it and needs to work it out –
and that generally gets the  word started correctly – and if it is not too
long – completed correctly – long words are more problematic.

To date we have attacked a number of word lists to build up a sight
vocabulary – her preferred – and most successful approach is to learn the
words from and individual flash card (we do each word three consecutive
times correctly – and then file it away.  As she can read them – we learn to
spell them as well – as we build up the sight vocabulary – I make longer and
longer flashcards out of them – and we are currently on three words long
ones – and just about to move to four – like “at the big house” – and we
write these as well.

Her favourite thing to do is “radio reading” (the name shows my age – at
least I am not calling it wireless reading!)  Here we get the easiest books
from my stock – and see how long she can read like the radio – without a
pause or a hesitation – very useful that – she has an on/off button – a
volume control – and one for expression too – and I pretend to turn her off
or on and turn up the volume etc.

Now – the optician has recommended an expensive American computer programme
which will attack this sort of problem – around £90 – and he says that the
USA has developed this sort of programme – but there is nothing home grown
that does this.  I’ve had a preliminary google – but I don’t know the
correct medical name for this problem – or to sort out what remediation
might be on offer.  What I have been doing is merely a response (that is
currently working – but not as fast as I would like for all the effort she
is putting in).

Can anyone help me with more details of this problem – and any more teaching
ideas that have worked for your students who have had this problem – and has
anyone had any experience of this – currently nameless – computer programme
– can’t get hold of the optician yet.

Regards

Ruth