VISUAL PREDICTORS OF READING PERFORMANCE IN KINDERGARTEN AND FIRST-GRADE CHILDREN

Purpose. A masked investigation of the relation between performance on various vision tests and reading was conducted with 90 kindergartners (mean age 5.73 years) and 91 first graders (mean age 6.76 years) from a middle class, suburban, elementary school near Cleveland, Ohio. Met hods. Vision testing included the Modified Clinical Technique (MCT), /-2.00 D flipper lenses with red/green suppression check for accommoda tive facility, and Randot for stereoacuity. Reading performance was in dependently evaluated with the Metropolitan Achievement Test 6 Reading Test and teachers' assessments. Results. The results revealed that ac commodative facility was predictive of successful reading performance in 7-year-olds (p = 0.0431), first graders (p = 0.0125), and in the en tire subject group when age (p = 0.0254) or grade (p = 0.0224) was con trolled. Failure on the MCT was significantly associated with decrease d reading skill in 5-year-olds (p = 0.0431). In addition, stereoacuity worse than 100 sec are (p = 0.0316), MCT failure plus stereoacuity wo rse than 50 sec are (p = 0.0316), and accommodative facility (p = 0.01 55) were predictive of whether children of average intelligence would show successful or unsuccessful reading ability. Conclusions. Thus, vi sual performance was significantly related to reading performance even in children of average intelligence when IQ was partially controlled. Also, the predictive value of the MCT for reading achievement could b e improved by the addition of a referral criterion for stereoacuity. T his would make the results of MCT screening more readily applicable to educators.