Gordon Parks Visual Skills Program

Gordon Parks Elementary School is seeing the impact of instruction that links all aspects of a child’s ability to see with his or her ability to read and learn.

Cheryl Steffenella, a long-time teacher with the Kansas City, Missouri, School District, brought visual skills instruction to Gordon Parks in 2004. In addition to degrees in elementary education, reading and special education, she also had eight years’ experience as a vision therapist in an optometric practice.

Shortly after joining Gordon Parks staff, Steffenella visited Grand Traverse Charter School in Michigan. This school’s total educational program is designed on optometric principles. A description of their Integrated Visual Learning follows:

“Integrated Visual Learning (IVL) is an optometric-based process developed by Steven J. Ingersoll, OD. The IVL process combines vision procedure with cognitive processing drills and mental and motor skills. This combination creates a unique program designed to strengthen students' visual learning. Eighty percent of the information we receive is processed visually, so the better we learn visually, the higher our achievement.”

The program at Gordon Parks blends many of the same practices from Grand Traverse with others from Steffenella’s experiences as a vision therapist and reading specialist.

What does “visual skills” instruction look like to an untrained observer? Instruction emphasizes feeling and controlling eye movements while reading and processing information. Kindergarteners learn where their bodies are in space so later they are able to make directional observations in letters, numbers and words. We may see children reading while they’re on a balance board, juggling balls while reciting from memory, spatially navigating a “hundreds board” on an overhead, or sitting on balance chairs while moving in time to a metronome.

Getting Started at Gordon Parks

Testing in 2004 showed that 60 percent of Gordon Parks’ kindergartners failed a visual-skills test that included observations of ocular-motor control, tests of binocularity and stereo vision, as well as near and far acuity. Even though most students had 20/20 acuity, they had trouble maintaining a fixation, focusing on moving objects, tracking lines of print and shifting their visual focus from near to far. These abilities readily translate to reading skills, whether it’s a book in the hand or notes on the white board.

A pilot program with second graders was implemented during the first year. Data was collected with pre- and post-therapy testing, the Developmental Eye Movement Test (DEM) and reading probes using AIMSweb. The program utilized both small-group and whole-class instruction.

Data captured at the end of the pilot was positive. Each student increased his or her scores for correct words per minute. Percentiles on the DEM increased in direct relation to increased reading scores. According to teachers, students also seemed to be more aware of the role that their eyes play in learning.

On to Kindergarten

Following the encouraging pilot, Steffenella introduced a second program in kindergarten classes. During initial eye exams at school, optometrists Beth Bazin, O.D., and Mike Frier, O.D., identified students who did better during a near-point task with the help of learning lenses (lenses that optically make things appear larger and farther away). Learning lenses remove enough visual stress (less convergence is required) in the near-point to allow students with a weak visual system to achieve and maintain attention in the near-point for longer periods of time.

For 30 minutes every week, kindergarteners participated in large motor activities to develop awareness of their own bodies in space, activities to develop awareness of eye movements and activities requiring control of eye movements while performing a motor or auditory task. For example:

• Make angels in the snow. Move isolated body parts in time to a beat while lying on the back.
• Use a laser flashlight against the ceiling. Have the child lie on his/her back or tummy and visually follow the moving light from left to right, top to bottom, and diagonally.
• Balance on T-chairs while moving to the beat of a metronome.
• Complete maze activities and line-tracking and tracing activities.
• Participate in scooter board races, with letter/sound recognition.
• Use a metronome with rapid letter and sound reading.
• Perform target pursuits and rotations.
• Perform activities that involve near/far fixation.

Looking Good!

Based on Gordon Parks’ data over the last three years, there appears to be a strong connection between improved ocular motor control and improved reading performance. Student classroom performance has been enhanced by both the skill-building activities and students’ personal awareness of how their vision impacts their learning.

“At Gordon Parks, we support the concept that vision is more than 20/20,” Steffenella says. “Reading performance will not improve without development of the following visual perceptual skills: discrimination, spatial awareness, laterality, directionality, closure, eye movement control, vision leading voice (oral reading), and ultimately, automaticity. All of these skills have a motor base that develops from large motor control to the small motor control of the eyes.”

The benefits of the therapies used at Gordon Parks reach out beyond our classrooms. Through professional communities, Steffenella’s work contributes to an expanding knowledge base other educators can use to help students around the country, perhaps around the world.