Vision Therapy for Brewski

      This story has A LOT of back story. A lot. Starting in the summer before 1st grade, we had Brewer working on phonics with Phil's Aunt Cheryl. Cheryl taught first grade for decades and decades and is amazing with kids; so much patience, so much love and so much fun. We noticed towards the end of kinder that Brew wasn't excelling like he was at the first of the year, which is why we thought he could benefit from phonics. The summer before 2nd grade we continued with Cheryl for more phonics and help with reading. He wasn't terrible, but it seemed like something was off or at the very least he wasn't achieving his full potential. I ran into a friend that summer and we discussed that frustrations and distress as a parent with a kid who struggles with reading. She mentioned to me that her son was beginning vision therapy in Idaho Falls. I didn't think much of that since we were on a proactive path with Cheryl. During second grade, reading continued to be a struggle and I kept noticing weird things that Brewer would do, including mixing up letters or small words, mixing around letters in words, starting sounds with the wrong sound as well as reading a paragraph with amazing proficiency. I started asking around about dyslexia. I kept pushing his teacher that something was off. No one had answers and assured me that at some point reading would "click" for Brewer.
     Guess what, that wasn't happening and I wasn't buying it. The kid was putting in the work. I mean, grinding through every single day, hating most of it with a good attitude. That kid can put his head down and just work. Working through two summers and hardly ever skipping a day of reading, there had to be something else.
    Finally vision therapy came back to my mind and we thought about it for a few months and then just took the plunge thinking we had nothing to lose. He had two different appointments at Idaho Vision Development Center where they tested him for all sorts of things. They tested his vision, gross motor skills, spacial awareness, comprehension, reading and probably a lot more. When the results came in, Brewer was a great candidate for needing some help with his vision. While there was a lot happening, the noteworthy things were these: 1-He could not focus on a point for more than a few seconds. That made a lot of sense to us and made us cringe a little when we would think back to how he would behave when we took pictures--a lot of shifty eyes because he couldn't stay focused on the camera! 2) Some gross motors skills were not developed 3) The way his eye tracked words on a page was so inefficient, no wonder he was having a hard time! While his comprehension was amazing, his eyes would jump all over the page. 4) He also was diagnosed with what is called "crowding phenomenon. Basically, when there is a lot happening on a page, pictures, small words and everything just packed in, he can't take it all in and makes reading and tracking words even more challenging. This explains why word searches were so hard for him! Thank goodness I never really made him do them--I would always find the first letter of the word and he would find the rest. 

        (Side note: several months have passed since I started this post and since Brewer started vision therapy. He began the very end of June and now it's the end of January. He's nearly done with his 7 month course--it's taken us a tad longer since we have missed a week here and there.)

    Now that we're almost done, we are thrilled at how well he's progressed. We have also been shocked at the things that have been hard for Brewer that we had no clue about. Thank heavens we have been led to this path! Will this help everything? Probably not. But it has helped give him better coordination and he's a better reader. Finding vision therapy was an answer to our prayers and we are so grateful. We are also so impressed and thankful for Brewer, who has been the one that has had to put in all the hard work. Fives times a week, doing at home exercises to help him progress has not been easy or fun all the time. It is no surprise though, that Brewer has knocked it all out of the park with his dedication, willingness and hard work. It hasn't all been roses and we'll be glad when it's done, but Brew has done a great job and will even earn a RC Car for all these months of effort! We are so proud of you Brew!!