To make matters worse English is littered with exceptions to the letter-sound rules. Compare bough, dough, lough, cough, enough! After all that effort on reading each word, many children can't remember the words they read at the beginning of a sentence to understand the whole thing.

Dyslexia assessor Georgina Smith says that coloured overlays can help people with visual stress as well as dyslexia. When Smith assessed some students, who were experimenting with coloured overlay rulers, the students said that they wanted to try their favourite colours at first. Smith thought that it was best for the student to try every coloured overlay ruler available to them for 10 – 15 minutes before deciding which colour worked best for them. Our top 3 dyslexia glasses & coloured overlays recommendations Dyslexia is a neurological condition affecting between 7-10% of the population. It is a learning disability which has an impact on a person’s ability to learn how to read and write (despite adequate intelligence and educational opportunities). One side of the overlay has a matt coating. Some matt coatings can reduce transparency, but coloured overlays from Crossbow Education have been subjected to stringent testing to ensure that maximum print clarity is retained while reflected light from the overlay surface has been significantly reduced. Nevertheless, some people prefer using the gloss side of the overlay. There are different types of colour filters that can aid reading for people with dyslexia. Find out all about dyslexic glasses and overlays here. How do Tinted Glasses and Lenses Work? Please note the colours shown in the pictures may not be an exact representation of the colour in real life.Symptoms such as these have a variety of different causes, some of which may be due to disease or abnormality, so they must be investigated by a professional who is qualified to diagnose them correctly and give appropriate treatment. Anyone who experiences such difficulties associated with reading should consult a registered optometrist for a full assessment of eye health and visual function. In 1999, British scientists carried out clinical trials that “found that coloured lenses could help people with visual dyslexia.” 400 children participated in the most recent study where “90% reported a significant improvement in reading, writing and comprehension skills” whilst wearing the coloured lenses. Over the 6-month assessment period, the children showed a minimum improvement rate of 45% for their reading, writing and comprehension skills. How Do Coloured Overlays for Dyslexia Work? Essilor: Essilor is a well-known eyewear company that offers a range of lenses, including those designed for dyslexia. They have developed specific lens technologies, such as Eyezen lenses, which are designed to reduce visual fatigue and improve comfort during prolonged reading or computer use. Bright blue light can also improve auditory attention, suggesting that the effects of light on alertness and attention are automatic and not mediated by conscious visual perception. Rather they are mediated by this retino-hypothalamic synchronising system. Blue light therapy has also been shown to help people with sleeping problems, to improve alertness during night shift work and to help overcome jet lag. This probably also works on the suprachiasmatic nucleus to alter the timing of diurnal rhythms. We found that children whose reading benefitted from wearing blue filters during the day also often reported that their sleeping patterns had improved, and we showed that this was probably due to an effect on the SCN; at night secretion of the sleep hormone, melatonin, which is also under the control of the SCN, can be inhibited by just 15 minutes of blue light ie blue light can reset the SCN rhythms to improve sleeping.

According to a teenager mentioned in ‘Reading Through Colour’ (2003) by Professor Arnold Wilkins, using a coloured overlay when reading “made all the difference.” The teenager quoted his experience as “the most important moment of [his] life” and he could “see text clear as glass.” The vision screening that most children undergo at school entry (age 4 to 5) is only a test of whether a child can see clearly in the distance. It is not a comprehensive assessment of eyes or vision and does not test any of the functions required for clear and comfortable vision when reading. For this reason, every child should have a full sight test when they start school, and as frequently as recommended by their optometrist after that. The main aim of DRT research into visual and auditory weaknesses in poor readers is to develop treatments that will help them, and to prove by properly controlled trials that they work. We have shown that simple treatments such as viewing text through blue or yellow coloured filters, musical training or eating oily fish, really can help children to learn to read. But disagreement among researchers still exists over the mechanisms and theory behind the filters’ effects. And debate still rages surrounding the fundamental issue of which colour is needed to achieve optimal results. Myth versus evidence Proponents of this theory say that prescribed coloured eyeglasses or plastic overlays could alleviate perceived visual distortions. It is believed that the removal of this visual stress would improve reading and facilitate the development of reading skills in the longer term and help people with dyslexia. The simplicity of the intervention has helped it to become embedded into the practice of teachers, educational psychologists, optometrists and NHS orthoptic departments across the UK.

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Our 10 scientifically selected colours; can be combined to make 30 tints equally around the colour spectrum Contrary to the coloured lenses research that was conducted in 1999, coloured overlays can be looked upon as controversial. This is because, in an experiment conducted where some participants were asked to read text without an overlay and then with an overlay, there was no significant difference between the reading speeds for either method. For example, Emily, aged 7 when the experiment took place, had a reading speed of 49 correct words per minute (CWPM) without an overlay and 48 CWPM with the overlay. The overlays being referred to as dyslexia overlays can also be considered controversial because they do not only help people with dyslexia, but they can also be beneficial for people with dyspraxia and AD(H)D. What Colour Overlay is Best for Dyslexia? In cerebellar patients he had shown that their unstable vision was due to damage to large nerve cells in the brain, known as visual magnocells, that are specialised for detecting movement. When these magnocells are not working properly the servo system that keeps your eyes fixed on a letter fails, and so the letters appear to move around. So with Sue he set up a clinic to investigate whether children's visual reading problems were due to the same cause. Research has demonstrated that people with dyslexia often have difficulty processing and representing the specific sounds of language. As a result, someone with dyslexia will experience difficulties in associating printed letters with relevant speech sounds, thus causing reading difficulties.