8yo says "letters jumping around"

[wtftodo]

This is a confusing one: 8yo dd, exceptional reader (with comparable comprehension) according to school, is complaining that letters jump around when she's reading.

At 6 she was prescribed glasses for a hitherto unsuspected eyesight issue (shortsighted I think? Struggles to see things further away) and there had been no signs.

I have picked up recently on a few words being misread: eight as night, that sort of thing, which is when she said the letters jump around.

The only other thing I've noticed over the years is missing the start of a new line and rereading the one just read, or skipping a line by accident; as well as guessing words or missing them.

I assume this isn't dyslexia as her spelling etc is excellent but what else might be causing it? Eyesight/something else?

I do think it's impacting how much she reads; she doesn't like to read dense text at all and refuses to read the challenging books the school send home, instead reading the beano or lottie brooks type books.

Usually when letters jump around it is a form of dyslexia, if it isn't happening all the time it could be some sort of migraine or headache type issue but it's all just supposition without a diagnosis. You could do with taking her to the doctors and explaining and seeing if they can refer her for further investigation.

Could it be irlen syndrome?

Sounds like visual stress. She needs to see a specialist optician who can see if tinted lenses will help.
It's not a type of dyslexia - they are two separate things.

A friend of mine's son had this, and he had an undiagnosed eye muscle issue with one of his eyes. Fixed with exercises from a specialist - it was described as the words jumping away from him on the page so he'd really struggled to learn to read and was way behind, but no other learning issues. I'd look into eyesight more deeply and see if that's an issue

There are different types of dyslexia. My DDs both have a form of visual dyslexia - one of them describes printed words just like your DD. They both pass standard dyslexia screening with no issues!

There is some controversy in the Sen world about coloured overlays / Irlen syndrome, but both DDs are diagnosed with visual stress and find different coloured backgrounds reduce the stress and enable them to read more easily.

It would be worth taking her to see an optometrist who is listed on the webpage for the College of Optometrists in Vision Development. They are very specialist and can diagnose both dyslexia and vision development problems. They can also give exercises to correct vision development issues.,

https://www.covd.org/

In my area, schools can refer to an NHS visual stress clinic for further investigation, your area may have something similar.

Visual stress. My daughter has it, she is also dyslexic. The two are separate diagnoses and you can have one without the other.

In her dyslexia assessment her reading speed and comprehension increased from 5 to 60% just by using a pink overlay.

We went to a specialist optometrist who pinpointed the best colour for her and she now uses the overlays and exercise books in this colour. We have to buy the books and overlays and provide paper for the school to print onto for worksheets.

It has made a huge difference for her.

If you are in reach of London www.ioo.org.uk/ I think it was around £150 for the initial tests.

Dyslexia presents in different ways. My DC is dyslexic but can spell and read aloud fluently (has to reread several times in order to remember though). Visual stress can be part of dyslexia or it might just be visual stress.

It can be an indicator of dyslexia. You can buy coloured gels that you lay over the page and they stop the letters from jumping. But different colours work for different children, so it might be good to get hold of a few (school might have a supply of them) and test which works for her. If they do work, she just needs to lay the gel over the page.

It can be an indicator of dyslexia, but is not in itself dyslexia. She needs to struggle with reading, spelling and reading comprehension. Sounds more likely to be visual stress or visual processing. Go to a proper optometrist who can assess for this.

Thanks all for v helpful replies. @stanleypops66 she doesn't struggle at all with those things - they're particular strengths for her.

If we go to her regular opticians (at specsavers) can they assess or refer on to a specialist? Or is that something we need to go through GP for? (I have googled and am confused)

Dyslexia presents in different ways.
It may only present occasionally depending on the formatting of the text she is reading.

More dyslexia friendly formats would be Matt pages, lots of space around the words and letters, less words on a page, navy font or creamish pages. Arial/ calibri style font or similar

Glossy pages, black ink on white to tends to be the worst combinations with times new Roman or similar fonts

My son had this. It's a problem with a muscles in the eyes that mean that they struggle to change focus.

Sometimes called visual stress or convergence insufficiency.

If you go to an optometrist they will be able to help.
Opticians can spot it (sometimes) but a regular eye test doesn't look for it.

There are exercises your child can do to strengthen the muscles.

www.nei.nih.gov/learn-about-eye-health/eye-conditions-and-diseases/convergence-insufficiency

Find an optometrist near me

www.babo.co.uk/map

When did she last get her eyes checked

The prescription changes all the time

Thanks, she had her eyes tested 3.5/4 months ago but I've booked her in for this weekend to check if there's any changes. Hopefully they can assess whether there's anything else going on or refer her onwards if necessary

If they are bright, they can compensate a lot until they get a bit older and eye muscles less stretchy and the print on books gets smaller. My child learnt to read despite it all being pretty blurry due to unknown long sightedness. Specialists said if they weren't so bright we would have known something was wrong. No headaches etc either. First eye test post-covid age 6 was quite a shock!!

This explains it well -
https://www.tks-optometrists.co.uk/specialist-services/binocular-vision/

When/ if you get to the black and white non- verbal reasoning tests at 11+, this becomes a real nightmare. I paid for a test for my child, a clinical letter and a blue overlay for the exam. Expensive but worth doing. That was 15 years ago. I would have thought schools would be a bit more up to speed now.

Is it only with certain colours or in particular rooms? E.g. red text under fluorescent light (or some poor quality LEDs) can appear to move around a page.

Update, should anyone be interested: brought dd for an eye test this morning, told the optometrist about the letters jumping around. She asked a lot of questions and seemed to be very thorough. In the end it turns out DD needs a lower prescription than she's been wearing and the optometrist was confident that's been causing her issues.