The Importance of Vision Checks in Primary School

We can increase your child's reading test score growth by up to 27% in just a few minutes. As absurd as it sounds, it’s true, and it’s not a new learning method, a miracle drug, or a psychic spell… it's a vision test! Over 20% of schoolchildren have an uncorrected visual issue that, if addressed, can dramatically improve their education. Despite its impact on learning and life, oftentimes children’s visual health is overlooked and left unaddressed until it is too late. This article explores the importance of regular vision screenings, how they have been linked to higher test scores, and how to make sure your child doesn’t fall behind because of a vision problem.

The increased importance of vision in young children

From reading to science, 80% of all primary school classwork is administered visually. meaning that schoolchildren’s ability to learn is largely dependent on their ability to see. Especially at an early age, it is no exaggeration to say that having better eyesight makes you a better learner, so starting with the setback of worse vision creates a snowball effect that oftentimes leads to widespread academic failure down the road. For example, imagine two kindergarten students, both learning to read, both equally intelligent, but one’s vision is worse than the others. The child with the worse vision will naturally struggle more with the acquiring foundational concepts of reading, recognizing letters, building fluency, and will find it more challenging to participate in the class. Fast forward to third grade, and the gap between the two children will have only increased, as the child with worse vision was never able to build up the reading foundations to compete. Children can easily get demotivated when faced with such setbacks, so it is not uncommon for a child to lose their interest in academics altogether, especially if they feel as though they are at a fundamental disadvantage. Even when working just as hard, learning has become unfair. This is why catching on to a child’s visual discrepancies early on is so crucial, since all it takes is one vision exam to ensure that the child can get the glasses they need and not fall behind their classmates.

Baltimore Case Study

In 2016, the vision screening failure rate in Baltimore City Public Schools was 34% with 25% of all children in BCPS needing glasses. Baltimore city would conduct a state-mandated vision screening during 1st grade and 8th grade, but critics noted that these exams were too few and far between. If a student suffered visual trauma in 2nd grade, they would have to wait until 8th grade before their next screening, and by that time the academic damage would have already been done. In 2016, a Johns Hopkins sponsored association (Vision for Baltimore) began to provide eye screenings to all students from Pre-K to 8th grade, and provided glasses to 2304 students that year. Johns Hopkins would conduct a study for the next 3 years, following these 2304 students and tracking their test scores year by year. At the end of the study, the test scores of the students who needed and received glasses were compared to those of students who never needed them. The rate of growth in these test scores were found for both groups and compared to each other. In just one year, the study found:

• 9% more reading growth with children who got glasses compared to those who didn’t

• 15% more growth with females

• 25% more growth with special education

• 27% more growth with the bottom quartile of academic performers

• 3% more mathematical growth

Again, “growth” in this case doesn’t mean that the actual test scores for the glasses cohort were higher than the non-glasses cohort, but that they improved at a faster rate after receiving the glasses. The magnitude of academic improvement of students was comparable to the effects of 1:1 tutoring and it was noted that teachers felt as though the students who had previously been struggling the most were the ones showing the most improvement. After this study, the city of Baltimore integrated Vision For Baltimore into their official screening program, and to this day continue to conduct vision screenings on a yearly basis between Pre-K and 8th grade.

Concluding Thoughts

California state law requires that children be screened in 2nd, 5th, and 8th grade, and while this is better than Baltimore’s original screening schedule, it still falls very short of the annual screening rate benchmark that would better ensure no child falls behind. The Junior Care Clinic (JCC) at UC Berkeley volunteers at numerous Bay Area elementary schools to screen all grades Pre-K through 6th. In doing so, the Vision Committee found a vision discrepancy rate of ~28% (vision discrepancy means anything that is not 20/20 vision) among children across all grades. This discrepancy rate includes children who claim they have already been screened by the government screening programs, showing that the state mandate can oftentimes still be ineffective. The families of children with discrepancies are provided with resources which assist in getting glasses and future eye care for their child, although the scope of JCC’s work is limited to underserved schools in the East Bay. We emphasize the importance of regular vision screenings to ensure that no child is left at an academic disadvantage and implore all parents to be aware of the visual health of their children and the impacts that it could have on their future. Something as easy as an optometrist visit could produce up to a 27% growth in test scores as seen in Baltimore so we highly recommend finding an optometrist clinic near you, and making sure that your child won’t fall behind because of a fixable vision issue.