How Can I Help My Students with Vision Issues?

"We wanna make sure those kids are getting their chance because often they're misdiagnosed.  We want to give parents and teachers the tools to help children overcome these difficulties and reach their full potential."

Today we have the pleasure to be joined by Angela, Lindsey, and Sheila, three amazing and highly professional teachers, who all together add more than 50 years of experience in the public school system.

We must say that thanks to their motivation, initiative, and caring support for the children, we are very happy to announce our new Built to Read Professional Certification Program, specially designed for teachers who want to help their kids develop their visual systems.

Angela, Lindsey, and Sheila shed light on the often overlooked issue of children facing visual processing challenges, which are commonly misinterpreted as attention or behavioral problems.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

(06:38) Our guests' backgrounds and understanding what Irlen Syndrome is.
(08:38) The missing link, something beyond dyslexia, and a thing called “Vision Therapy”.
(18:03) Experiencing the new Built to Read PCP from a teacher’s perspective and the plans to put it into practice in their daily life.  
(31:21) Advocating for Visual-Motor Integration. 
(33:52) Tips and suggestions to other teachers on the importance of Visual Therapy.

Check out our Digital Programs

• 4d Built to Read Digital Program
• Concussion Recovery
• Built to Drive

Follow us at 4D Vision Gym on Facebook and Instagram @4dvisiongymvt for the latest news and updates. DM us if you have any Vision Therapy related questions - you may hear the answer in a future episode!

If you enjoyed this show, please rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We really appreciate your support!
Send us a screenshot of your review and receive 10% off any one of our 4D Vision Gym products or services. And if your friends or family are experiencing inexplicable challenges, refer them to this podcast and tell them, “It Could Be Your Eyes.”   

Transcript

Dr. Juanita Collier: Welcome to the It Could Be Your Eyes podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Juanita Collier. Through my decades of work in the field of vision, I have met thousands of patients, parents, educators, therapists, and doctors searching for solutions to the seemingly unsolvable. Challenging traditional medicine's new normal?

We'll uncover that the root cause isn't necessarily what you thought it might be. It could be your eyes.

Hi, and welcome back to It Could Be Your Eyes. Now today we are super excited to introduce our Built to Read Professional certification program. And so for those of you who've been listening, I'm sure that you've heard a lot about our built to Read program and how parents have really been changing the lives of their children by, you know, working with them every day and learning all about the visual system, and really getting this new understanding of how their child is seeing.

Why reading might not be going as well as expected and kind of sitting in the driver's seat as far as affecting that change for their kiddos. And now by popular demand, I should say, we've created an entire course training a teachers on how to help their kiddos really develop their visual systems and get the skills necessary for reading with ease and really helping parents.

Understand how to navigate the built to read program and, and supplementing that in the classroom and better picking out what kiddos might need, a little extra intervention as far as the visual systems concerned. So, Jess, why don't you tell us a little bit about how this came to be. 

Jessica: So it actually started with, it could be your eyes, you're gonna meet Angela, Sheila, and Lindsey and Angela.

And Sheila actually reached out to us on our website and they set up a time for us to actually talk on the phone. And we didn't know what they wanted to talk about. We saw that they were from far away and we're like, what's going on? Why do, okay, well, we're happy to talk. And they were just so excited, that they found us and that they heard about Bill to read and that there was something that they could do because they are very skilled, they're experts in reading intervention and teaching reading. They've been in the game for a long time and they were able to look around and say, you know, there's only so much we can do if kids can't see, how can they read?

And so they knew that they needed to do something and their closest behavioral optometrist to them is two hours away one way and just out of reach for a lot of their families. And so when they heard about Built To Read and they heard us on the podcast, they were like, this is it. This is it. So they reached out to us and they asked how they might be able to get built to readed in the hands of their students.

And not only wanted more and how we. Be able to provide these sorts of services for their kids without going to optometry school, of course. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Exactly. So you know, without using lenses and prisms and everything like that, but really kind of being able to pick out what's going on with their kiddos and know where to refer them.

And then also having this amazing resource of built to read that parents can do at home and really make such a big difference for their children so that they're. More ready for reading intervention because you can try to teach reading, you know, until you're blue in the face. But if a kiddo seeing double when they're trying to read, they just can't do it.

They're gonna try to come up with compensations. They're going to try to figure out, you know, how is it possible for me to track appropriately, even though I'm seeing the words moving on the page? How am I supposed to be able to, you know, have good fluency when the letters are actually changing as I'm looking at them?

And kiddos can't really verbalize that so much. And even if they try, a lot of times parents and some teachers and some other professionals might, might think that the kiddo might be pulling their leg a little bit. And a lot of times we know our kids and sometimes they like to avoid things. Mm-hmm. And other times they're actually telling the truth and you know, my son and I have to go over the boy who cried wolf quite a bit.

It's a thing. Yeah. More often than I'd like. So, We completely empathize with the parents who are thinking like, oh, maybe my kiddo is just lazy. Or with the teachers who are just, you know, feeling like, oh, they'd rather do something else than read, and they'd rather act out in class and this sort of thing, and maybe they have an attention issue.

But these three teachers really wanted to get to the crux of what was going on and be able to help their kiddos by. Any any means necessary really, and this program is intense and you know, they're training hours and hours and hours and taking tests and having q a sessions, and now we're gonna be going there for an in-person.

Training for them to really understand how to help kiddos who are having these difficulties and pick them out and really help them get whatever services that they need. So without further ado, let's hear from Sheila, Angela, and Lindsey themselves. I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Jessica Liedke: If you could make a positive change in your child's reading ability and confidence with reading in just 20 minutes a day, he would jump at the opportunity right? Of course he would. The 4D Built to Read program trains you the parent to become a junior vision therapist and provides you with tools, activities, and support. You need to give your child a strong visual foundation so they can read, play, and take on whatever challenges they face. If your child is too bright to be struggling and getting low grades, or you've been told that in-office vision therapy would help, but you just can't find the time to commit.

The 4D Built to Read program may be just what you're looking for at a fraction of the cost. Visit 4D Built to read.com or check out the show notes for a link to learn more. 

Okay, so let's jump right on in. Angela, would you like to start and introduce yourself to our audience? 

Angela: Sure. I'm Angela Eddy. I'm actually just a recently retired public school teacher.

I taught in the public school for 27 years. I, um, taught fifth and sixth grade. I've taught kindergarten and most recently I was reading specialist in, um, public school. I also have done, um, some private tutoring. For reading as well. 

Jessica: Thank you. How about you Lindsey? 

Lindsey: My name is Lindsey Weaver. I have a Master's of Science in Education.

I'm certified birth to sixth grade. I've been teaching 22 years. I've been teaching in the public school. I taught pre-K, kindergarten, and now I'm moving into a reading specialist position. I am also a senior Irlen screener, and I have been an Irlen screener for five years. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Do you wanna just talk a little bit about what Irlen screening means for, um, those who might not know?

Lindsey: Absolutely. Um, Irlen Syndrome is a visual perceptual processing disorder. You have difficulty making sense of visual information. It's different from sight and vision. It's the brain has difficulty processing certain wavelengths of light. Stress can cause parts of the brain to become overactive and create an ability to efficiently process visual stimulus.

Jessica: Ok. Thank you. And Sheila, who are you? 

Sheila: I have also my master's in literacy and I'm certified in early education and elementary education. I, it was a blue ribbon teacher and I worked with the islands of Bahamas to help create programs in their reading departments in their schools. I'm currently a public school literacy teacher for pre-K through sixth grade. 

Jessica: So we have a lot of wealth of knowledge here. Between all three of you, you guys have decades of reading instruction, background, expertise. You guys really know what it takes to. Get kids reading more than a lot of us do. And so what helped you or what made you realize that perhaps there was a missing link? How did you come to see that vision might be a barrier to your student success?

Angela: Unfortunately, it took longer than any of us wished it had taken when we started seeing children not progress as they typically should have progressed. For me at first, my journey took me to, oh my goodness, maybe this is dyslexia. So I took several years studying dyslexia. What is dyslexia and what do we do for the dyslexic brain?

And that did not leave me to all of the answers either. I helped a lot of children along the way. Um, as I discovered that that brain is wired differently. And so I changed my instruction to help that. But I'm was still seeing that I could really get children to. Increase their reading skills, but we still had this big hump that we couldn't get over.

So just recently, as in with the last couple years, I had children that I could get on level reading as in their, uh, sound-based decoding. I could get on level, I could even get their comprehension on level, but their fluency was half what it needed to be. So I had a couple people say, and actually for years I would ask Lindsey, because Lindsey had this Irlen background and I would constantly ask her, Lindsey, can you please describe to me again what the difference is between visual processing or visual perception thinking this has something to do with vision.

So this year, Sheila and I started talking to some doctors of optometry and have seeing if we could figure out, this has to be something to do with this vision because. I would see children leaving out the beginnings of words, the end of words. Skipping words, skipping lines. So I'm thinking this is tracking.

This is, um, something to do with that, but really not being able to pinpoint what is actually going on here. So we really started pinpointing our search more in that direction. 

Sheila: What I started seeing in classrooms were first, I used to do a fifth grade classroom. I did part of a year, and I co-taught with another teacher in kindergarten, and then I was asked to loop with my children.

So I went kindergarten to first grade, kindergarten to first grade. And that was in a private school. And then I moved to public school and I've taught second grade for years, and then moved into the literacy specialist position. So what I started seeing is, My kids would start progressing and then they would plateau.

And I would say to the other teachers, and I use Lindsey a lot for her Irlen. I'm like, I don't understand. Like I've had 'em go get their eyes checked. I've had their hearing checked and all of the things that could affect it because of auditory or visual processing. But in our area, we didn't have anybody like that.

They kept sending them back saying, they don't need glasses. They don't need glasses. And so I guess I didn't understand until I started learning more about it. So I'm like, my kids are plate towing, but their intelligence isn't matching what they're giving me. And because we're a small school, we really have gotten to know these children really well and their families.

And so I would ascend them to Lindsey to get screened. And then some of our kids would come back with filters. And one of my kids, especially when I first started learning about it, went and had their DIBELS testing. With Angela and came back, and then a couple days later she went and got tested again.

She was two grade levels different. So I'm like this, there's more to this and I know there's more kids here that need help with their vision. So we started researching and researching until we found that there was a thing called vision therapy. And so we went to the closest place that we could find, which was two hours away, one direction, and started listening to him.

And then we started, um, looking for something else because we needed something closer. So then I ran across your podcast. And I was like, girls, you need to listen to this because we can be the best reading teachers in the world, but there is going to be a spot where they're going to plateau. And some of our children are plateauing because I just went from second to literacy and I had a child that I had two years ago and she wasn't reading any better.

And I'm like, what is going on here? And so I checked out to make sure it wasn't, she had cerebral palsy to make sure it wasn't just that. And I sent her to Lindsey and I'm like, there are more children here that need help like this. 

Jessica: So Lindsey, you found Irlen first. What brought you to Irlen? What kind of sparked your interest in all of this?

Lindsey: When my journey first started, I actually started with experience with vision therapy before Irlen and vision therapy actually brought me on my Irlen journey. My son was a struggling learner. I wouldn't say he was a struggling learner. He was just very disinterested. He was more of a hands-on, wanted to be out digging in the dirt, and he cared nothing about school and writing, and so I wanna be his mom.

Not mom, teacher. I wanna be my children's mom first and foremost. So when he went to school, the teachers never showed a bit of concern for his formation of letters, his spatial concepts, just different indicators that I looked for in my students. Um, the bilateral crossover was still quite weak with him, but I kind of sat back and I wanted the teachers to tell me in his district, okay, we are concerned.

I thought maybe it was an OT issue at first. And I don't see him in the classroom. This is just being a mom observing. We are always outside rolling downhills, climbing trees. He had no interest in school and I'm not going to push that. I'm gonna give him those natural experiences to help him grow. So I would do a little work with him at home at the end of Pre-K, and he has a very long name.

He still couldn't write his name. I was a little concerned, but the teachers were not. So fast forward to kindergarten. Pretty much the same. He did have make some progress, but still not where I, being a kindergarten teacher at the time thought he should be, but I was trusting the teachers. Then he goes to first grade and I had to take a project into school, and I mentioned it to his, um, teacher.

I said, you know, I just have some concerns. I would like him, which I had a friend who had taken her son to a doctor, the doctor that. Sheila and Angela were referring to who is two hours away. She had taken her son to a developmental optometrist and she said, maybe you should, you know, think about that for your son.

So I said, okay. And I asked the teacher and she said, absolutely, take him. So my first grade, I took him to this doctor. Oh he flew. He had vision therapy. He had insufficient converge and a vision therapy computer program. Which he made gains, but I do not feel that he made gains as quickly as he would've in person, but living two hours away.

You know, the struggle was getting him there weekly to do his sessions, and he did fight it. It was so hard for him, but he finally graduated the program and he flew. Then my daughter, she was struggling a bit, so I had her evaluated and she did some vision therapy. She did the Brock beads, we did the infinity walk at home, but she started to plateau.

So the optometrist we were working with sent us to the Irlen screener, and that's when my Irlen journey started, and that was really the puzzle piece for her. So I do have a little experience personally with vision therapy, but since that, I've kind of gone off on the Irlen and. Sheila and Angela approached me when they were, we always have all of our conversations about concerns with students and just different indicators that you notice with their eye tracking and their overall bilateral crossover and different little indicators.

You notice, and I would refer parents to the behavioral optometrists in our area, but like they said, it's two hours away and it's expensive. It's the traveling's hard and. Just to provide those services. So when Angela and Sheila came to me with this information of what more we can do to help, sky is the limit for us.

We're ready to be addressing student needs more. More than meets the eye, I guess I could say. Because really that's. The puzzle piece that we're missing that we're hoping to put into place for our students. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: And what's interesting about what you guys are doing is not only do you love the built to Read program in that parents are learning how to be like junior vision therapists and they're working with their kiddos and helping them kind of get that in-person treatment like you were referring to Lindsey, because having that person there and able to carry out everything with you as opposed to.

Just the computer program that you guys were doing where it's like kinda boring and it's all computerized and you know, there's not really that interaction you guys wanna take to a whole nother level where you actually are training in the built to read modality and concepts and everything like that.

So tell us a little bit about like what made you wanna do that extra step and also what your process of learning about the visual system has been like during your training. 

Angela: Well, part of it's been really hard. Sometimes I think my brain's so full I can't fit more in there. I mean, some of it, I'm telling you that I'm still thinking if you ask me a question on that palsy, I'm gonna have to get my pictures out because I still, part of it is so hard to learn, but part of it makes so much sense because.

I'll listen to the module and I think, oh, that's Soandso. That's Soandso. And I think I am watching this in so many of our students. And so it has been such a good learning experience as a teacher because there are so many students who have so many of these, and it's. Both frustrating and rewarding. It's frustrating because I feel like the help is there and we're not getting it to them.

It's rewarding thinking we can, we can do this, we can get this to these children. So it's both. We really have great vision for the future to get to these kiddos, not just our kiddos, but we're looking to expand beyond just our district. So that's very exciting for us. Because two of us are staying in that district and one of us is, is outside that district now.

So we're very excited about where that's going. Part of us feels super, super confident and part of it, I'll just speak for me, I keep saying us because we keep talking. The three of us are one. So I'll just say, my thought is sometimes I'm like, let's go, let's go. And then sometimes I review my notes and think I don't have all of this embedded.

And so then the. Confidence starts to lack, but I think I'll just carry my notebook around with me. But we're super enthusiastic about the vision for our students and where we can take this because. I don't know that there have been like a lot of surprises in what I've learned, only because it's been more revealing, understanding now why this kiddo is bringing his book up to his face like this and completely shutting off an eye.

Why he is always leaning on his face and, and for years I've said, honey, you need to sit up. That's not a proper position. That's not good posture for school. And all of these years. Then I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this poor kid's working so hard. And Mrs. Eddie's saying, honey, that's not the proper way to sit.

He's just trying to accommodate and I'm taking his accommodation away from him, but I didn't know that I was and. I feel like we just have so much that we need to educate more teachers on so that they're aware of why this child's doing that. There's a reason why he is laying his head down. It's not just that he is tired, which it is a lot of times, but he's actually accommodating.

He's actually trying to make that strong eye work, or they're working so hard, they want to do well. And they're doing the best they can. So it wasn't so much for me, surprises in what I learned, but just revelations as, wow, that's why they're turning and doing all those things that I've seen for a long time and had no idea at all.

Jessica: Oftentimes we're talking to parents, and parents talk about like the parent guilt, that they didn't know what was going on with their child and they didn't know how to help them, and they thought they were being lazy or they thought they weren't just trying hard enough. And so coming from a, a teacher's perspective, you've had all these years and you're like, oh, I just didn't know.

And, and how could you, it's not part of what we're taught, you know, I started as an education major too. Vision wasn't taught at all. And I think it's just one of those instances where it's like, well, when you know better, you do better and that's all you can do. That's really, that's really it. I dunno if Sheila, Lindsey, you guys have anything to add to that?

Sheila: What I saw was our kids were plateauing and things, but we really work in a rural place that is more low income. So our families can't afford to drive two hours up and two hours back, take time off, and they work. We don't have that. And oftentimes we don't have the support that some other school districts have by our parents.

So we are feeling like, how are we going to bring this in and how are we going to do it? How are we going to be the support when we don't necessarily have the support here for us? Or at home. So we need to work this into our reading program to make, have our kids have the best background, and I want them to love reading.

And we know that reading is the basis of all of the subject. So we want our kids to love to read and to love to learn, because that's what we like to do. So I don't feel like, I've always said, I don't feel like an expert when someone asks me, but because I always have learning to do and you can't be an expert if you still have to learn.

And I feel like the three of us all have that same feeling about learning and we still wanna learn. We're veteran teachers, but we wanna keep learning. And one of the other things that made me want to do any do things is. I've taught for so many years. I'm looking back now and I'm like, that poor kid. I wasn't everything that that child needed, or I had their parents, and what if I would've known this to help their parents?

And so we wanna bring it to the area, but we wanna make everyone aware. We wanna spread awareness to other school districts and to parents and pediatricians and C S E chairs. Because we don't know the same things from big areas we're, none of us have been educated because we don't experience it. So now that we know about it, we're gonna make sure that everybody is aware that we come in contact with when they ask us questions, because we're often approached by parents or teachers or even administration and asking us questions.

Hey, what do you think? What do you think? I'm seeing this. And so we wanna be able to give them some background. And also the things too is kids are getting so misdiagnosed. We have kids that are wiggling around in their chair and we're just like, well, he has an attention issue. Well, he has an attention issue.

Well, he's trying to focus on what's in front of him. He's moving around to try to see the text and it's frustrating. And oftentimes if they're intelligence is high. They know, they should know it. It causes frustration. And so we want to make sure the kids that we are, like they're clowning around, they're not paying attention, they're shut down, they're lazy.

We wanna make sure those kids are getting their chance because often they're misdiagnosed. 

Lindsey: So to piggyback on what Angela and Sheila said, I completely agree. I've seen all the same indicators since I started teaching. I started in Pre-K and I was fortunate enough to have an OT push in a pt, push in a speech therapist push in.

So I gained so much knowledge by working with them and then having my own child who went through the vision therapy. And the Irlen screening and diagnostic. Just having all those different experiences has kind of led me to this point where I have all this knowledge and I would continually send parents.

I would notice something and I would see these indicators, but I couldn't put my finger on it. And so I would constantly send them for further testing somewhere, but now I feel as though we will have that knowledge and we will be able to address more of our students and more of our own community.

Instead of having to send them off somewhere else, just like, um, I always say, everything's an onion. You have to peel away the layers to get to the root of the problem, because we could say, oh yeah, this child is fidgety. He has a d h D, but that's not always the answer. It's not always the answer. To label them or medicate them.

Let's get to the root of the problem and there's so many different strategies we can use to figure out what the root of the problem is. So I think we're very fortunate to be working with you ladies, to put this more in our toolkits, to address our community, our students, and go from there. 

Jessica: Well, and I think that's, that's kinda a cool, cool thing about how you're doing it.

You're learning this together, you know, not to say that people can't learn this on their own as well, but it's nice to have a community. And I know even when I was in training for becoming a therapist, there were someone else who started the same day as me. So the two of us would like. Study together and bounce things off of each other when you have a partner in the learning.

Obviously, just like anything else, it's, it's so helpful. We even try to replicate that even for our built to read parents, you know, we have our, our Facebook group. And we encourage them to, to talk to each other and bounce ideas off of each other and ask for advice from each other. Um, because I can tell you what, what I think all day long, but I'm not the one doing it at home with my kid.

So I think that just having some sort of. Learning community like a classroom or a virtual or a group of colleagues or whatever is always so, so beneficial. 

Sheila: I know another important thing I think we need to mention is like how we come in to class. And we are like, Hey, guess what? You know, we'll walk in from doing a podcast and we'll walk in.

And one day I walked in and she is listening to one of your podcasts. And I'm like, I just listened to that one. What did you think about 

Angela: We listen. Yeah, we listen to him on the way to work. Which one are you listening to? 

Sheila: Yeah. We're like, no way. And, and because we're teachers, we'll walk in and be like, I think they have, uh, palsy in their right eye and we'll go like, I'm like, well, tell me about that, Angela. So we would repeat it so that we're learning with each other. It's terrible. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: And so when you are looking into, you know, who to refer to, now that you have so much more knowledge about the visual system, like how will you determine like when you know somebody needs extra intervention from you as.

Purchasing the built to read program versus going in for a eye exam with a behavioral optometrist versus needing OT versus needing Irlen. It's like you're putting more tools in your toolbox and how do you, how are you gonna distinguish when to use those? 

Angela: Well, I think that'll start with using the screening tools that you've given us.

Um, like in our last module, and we'll use those as a launching point and I think those will give us an indication of what we will be able to do for them. And I think then we'll be able to clearly see this is beyond us and you need to see an a behavioral optometrist because it's beyond what we will be able to do ourselves.

They would definitely need to be tied into a doctor and not just what we can do, because the screen will show us, we can help you with this, with these activities and help you grow your skills in this way, but clearly through the screens. You need more. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: I think that that's really the big thing about, it's like really knowing, because yes, you guys, you know, see them a few times a week and it's like maybe they do need that every day with their parents.

Cause that's really how the program is designed is to be every day with their parents, you know? So like some people will need that extra and other people might just need. The help that you can provide them during your week with them, and then other people will need in office vision therapy still. So I think that it's important to kinda see like what the different levels are and even the people who are working with their parents at home, having, you know, their teachers understand what's really going on and being able to augment that in the classroom such big

that's. So much is happening with reading and being able to expedite that visual, um, rehabilitation process as much as possible is really what's gonna be key. 

Sheila: I think another thing that we've talked about as well is we really have to hit this running early childhood and because of the increase of standards at school, They have budgeted their work somewhere else and they've got a, got rid of a lot of V M I programs or numbers have gone up for kids who have IEPs.

So they just do improvement with 'em. So it cuts down on their time. And so after we talked to our school district, About a VMI program, so we're hoping that we can also talk to other school districts about VMI programs and be a resource to them so that when we notice a difference in the VMI program, it also triggers us to do more screening and then collaborate with each other and then collaborate with you.

So that you can lead us in the right direction. And so what also is gonna allow us to advocate for kids that not necessarily would get advocated for before. So I think that that's really important. So if we could get our V M I program in. In our and do more interventions five days a week instead of a couple days. That is our plan. 

Jessica: And when you say vmi, for our, uh, listeners who are, are less versed in this, you're talking visual motor integration? 

Sheila: Yes. And we talk to them about increasing and OT as well. 

Jessica: Yeah. And why do you see that as an important piece of the puzzle and and why is that important to advocate for?

Sheila: Well, with the use of technology and things as well and the increase in standards, things are getting pushed and faster. There's a lot of less hands-on. Children aren't playing with Legos and doing those extra things that they were doing before. There's less talking. Cuz communication is so instant, even with adults around them that we stop.

And forget that those are important skills that our children need to have to be able to move forward as productive adults. 

Lindsey: They're missing the developmental milestones that children really need to build on. 

Jessica: It's so true. It it, I mean, even just that crawling was taken out as a developmental milestone recognized by.

Is that the Academy of Pediatrics? Mm-hmm. Even something as simple as that, and we know from like just a purely visual standpoint, when you skip crawling, you miss out on a chance to fully develop a lot of visual skills like accommodative flexibility or you're. Ability to look up close and far away, you know, and back and forth quickly and easily.

Yeah. That bilateral movement that Lindsey, you talked about too, it's kind of like the ability to move both sides of your body simultaneously also translates to the coordination of our full body and including our eyes. And there's a lot of good stuff in that like basic play that a lot of our kiddos don't get anymore.

They're not playing jacks, they're not interacting with 3D space. They're on a screen. They're, even when they play with puzzles, it's on an iPad screen and they're moving pieces. Just across a smooth surface and not manipulating them with their hands. I love that you guys recognize that. Um, and you did that before we even got to you.

You came to us asking about that. It's a really important thing that our kiddos are missing in their development and that translates to learning and reading difficulties. So that's, it's wonderful that that's something that you recognize. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Okay. Well this was such a great conversation and I think that it would be wonderful if you guys should just speak a little bit to, you know, some of the teachers who are listening and like what they can do and any tips that you could give them as far as like helping their kiddos on the journey that you know you're now gonna help your kiddos with.

Angela: I would encourage other teachers to start like we did, and first start just listening to the podcast and learn as much as they can about vision therapy and reading and how. It impacts reading and go from there and educate themselves so that they know what they're seeing, know what they're looking at in their students.

Sheila: I think it would be important for teachers to start talking to each other, so like encourage when we talk to somebody in their understanding it. Say, you know, keep your ear out. If you hear somebody else that's talking about the same thing, maybe this could be for them too, but we wanna just educate our administrators as well.

I think if a lot of it too is when you're a mom, sometimes you have a gut feeling and. I think a teacher has a gut feeling and if you have a gut feeling, look into it more. 

Lindsey: I agree, Sheila. Being a mom and a teacher and always wanting the best for your children, and I myself was a struggling learner. I was diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age, and I do not think that's what it was.

Now that I have so much more knowledge, and that's what I just. Really think teachers and parents need to just don't give up. Just keep searching for more knowledge. Search for more answers. Ask so many questions, keep asking questions, and then work as a team. Just like Angela said. It's so important. 

Sheila: Yes, and talk to the parents. Ask the parents, what are you seeing at home? Because sometimes when you see at home it crosses over and you're like, ah, that kind of makes sense now. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Great. Well thank you guys so much for coming on our podcast and we can't wait to meet you in person on Friday and help with your presentation to your administrators and really see what we can do for your area to help your kiddos.

Angela: Looking forward to it. 

Lindsey: Thank you. 

Sheila: Thank you ladies. 

Angela: Thank you. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: You have a great day. 

Jessica Liedke: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the It Could Be Your Eyes Podcast.To schedule an appointment with Dr. Collier, visit us@4dvisiongym.com. To train your vision at home, visit us at 4D vision therapy@home.com. Rate and review our podcast and email a screenshot to receive 10% off a new evaluation or any of our digital programs. Subscribe to join us for more eye-opening episodes as we dive deep into all the ways that it could be your eyes.