Michael
- Posted on: Dec 2 2016
My name is Michael, I’m almost 14 and I’m in 8th grade. When I was about 12 years old I had an extremely hard time in school. I read slowly, I had difficulties in writing reports and I never read a book for fun.
It was frustrating for me to know that I had 20/20 sight (what I thought was perfect) but couldn’t read more than 120 words a minute. I knew in myself that I had a problem but I didn’t know what it was. I went to a reading class, and an ophthalmologist. The ophthalmologist said that I had perfect, beautiful eyes. When I heard that I was very discouraged. I was hoping that the ophthalmologist would find something wrong with my eyes so I could get whatever it was fixed.
One afternoon I went to a class type gathering to listen to Dr. Carl Hilllier tell us about vision therapy and how 20/20 sight was not perfect vision. He explained to us that if a person has 20/20 sight that just means that he can see something at twenty feet away. In reading you aren’t looking twenty feet away but only 16 inches. That day my mother and I talked with Dr. Hillier about my problem and got an appointment set.
When I got to Dr. Hillier’s office I took a series of tests that showed I did have problems and that they could be fixed.
At first I thought the home activities seemed a little pointless, strange, awkward and boring. After I knew what each activity actually did for my eyes it was more interesting.
Now I am just finishing vision therapy and its amazing how much of an improvement there has been in my life. I now have hardly any trouble finding information in books or remembering where a specific piece of information is in a book. The majority of my grades in school are A’s. I am actually reading a 468 page book in my free time for fun!