Dd says words move on the page

[HeadFairy]

Dd is 12, and says sometimes words move on the page when she's reading, mostly when she's feeling tired. She is absolutely refusing to go to an opticians, she got really upset when I suggested it. Poor thing has come through som fairly brutal orthodontic treatment (absolutely necessary thanks to incorrect jaw/teeth development) so she's wary of any kind of treatment, and she hates the idea of glasses.
I don't know what I'm asking really, clearly she's got to be checked out, but what does it usually mean when a child says the words move on the page? Is it dyslexia? No one has ever mentioned anything like this to me, and she's always been solidly meeting all expectations in school, so it hasn't affected her adversely before. Is an optician even the right place to start?

Sounds like dyslexia to me. Does the school have a dyslexia support assistant who could see if coloured overlays make a difference? Or just buy a set online.

Dyslexia
Irlens syndrome
I think both those can make words move round on a page and coloured overlays can help - it may not even need glasses.

Both my DC have this and it is visual processing disorder alongside dyslexia. You can ask your SEN dept at school to try colour overlays (many different colours in the range) to see if that stops the movement. Also look into Irlens syndrome (one of my DC has this the other doesn’t)

Dyslexics often describe the words moving. I know the children I work with say they ‘jump’ and the letters p and l especially move in the sentence. It would be my first thought.

This is a hard one as there are a few options.
She could be dyslexic and many have coping mechanisms. Does she show variable spelling or grammar?
She could have Irlens syndrome or a similar issue like eye tracking. This requires a specialist to look at her to test for this.
Finally she might need glasses! If she won’t test there is little you could do but could you ask a friendly teacher she respects to “recommend” it?

I hope it’s the 3rd option by the way!

She needs an eye test as a starting point. Explain to her that they don’t just check vision for glasses, it’s about eye health.

Why?

Thanks for the replies, I am going to call her school today and see if I can speak to her form tutor. She spells very phonetically, but she can spell when she thinks about things, it's just that she says she 'can't be bothered' to think about the right spelling.

My cousin has just been diagnosed with something called accommodative insufficiency after complaining that the letters and words moved on the page. He has had diagnosed dyslexia for years but now he has glasses that have prisms in them and is finding reading much easier. Might be worth asking an optician about AI as he has had eye tests for years and it was never picked up.

Could be any of the things mentioned above. My son son has visual stress (Irlens Syndrome) and his main complaint was words moving on the page. We had to pay for a specialist to examine him. We had initially suspected dyslexia, but coloured overlays solved the problem easily.

When my daughter was about the same age she said words moved on the page. She described it as sometimes looking like they were swirling like water down a plug hole. We had her tested to see if she was dyslexic twice and both times the result said no. She was tested for Irlen syndrome and the result was she has it quite severely. It's a sensory processing disorder. She got extra time for written work and is now at uni. Best wishes to your DD xx