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The benefits of using a guided/moving window program.
Guided reading has been shown to significantly help
people who are at the later stages of remediation of their learning related
visual problem. Guided reading involves displaying text to be read in a moving window.
Generally the size of the moving window will be 2.5 to 4 words in width
and the window will slide from left to right and then jump down to the next
line and continue moving from left to right guiding the reader along the
text.
Once binocular vision problems have been addressed by optometric vision therapy and once eye movements have been freed from movements of the rest of the body through vision therapy, guided reading is quite helpful in a number of ways. Most slow readers only know what it is like to read slowly. With the guided window set from 20-30 words per minute faster than their
average reading speed the person is given a feel for what it is like to parse
text a little faster than they are used to. The guided window pulls them along over the text helping to pattern the visual guidance systems movements, providing the person the opportunity to
“write the programs” necessary for this faster parsing skill.
Another virtue of guided reading is that the widow does not reward regressions during reading. Normal readers make about 15% of their fixations in a reverse, or right
to left, order prior to reaching the end of the line to refixate an area of the
text again. Many readers with learning related visual problems have a much higher percentage of regressions in their reading, some as high as 40-45%. The moving window continues moving in a left to right manner. If a person makes a right to left regression
while using a guided reader will be moving into
an area that previously showed text but when they arrive there is now
blank. Over time and with practice the lack of reward for such a movement will lead to a diminishment of the number of these movements.
In a study by Dennis Hoover 1 working in the practice of Paul Harris, O.D., he showed, by using eye movement recordings before and after, that vision therapy alone resulted in an average reading speed improvement of 48%. When six additional vision therapy sessions using the ReadFast Program were added at the end of the conventional vision therapy, the reading speed improved to 73%, without any loss of comprehension!
VisionBuilder is a Windows based program which works on all versions of Windows. In addition to all the functionality of ReadFast, VisionBuilder includes many additional features including some binocular activities using red/blue glasses and an ocular motor drill with a directionality component.
1. Hoover, D., Harris, P., “The Effects of Using the ReadFast Computer Program on Eye
Movement Abilities as Measured by the OBER2 Eye Movement Device”, JOVD, Volume
28, Winter 1997, pp 227-234 |