A study on reading development. Practical experimental exercises for users with dyslexia and reading difficulties
Serena De Luca
This study, which involved six users with dyslexia, non-specific learning disorders and reading difficulties, and normal readers, aimed to apply, in virtue of the different characteristics and difficulties that we find in children, a method of training the eye muscles, working on saccades and the fixation of points, on the speed of movement and the pausing of eyes first on the graphics presented and then on the text itself. The findings have shown that, both in children with reading difficulties, and those with dyslexia, this model of training improves reading performance as well as text comprehension. The improvement in the accuracy and speed of movements from left to right, but also from top to bottom (and vice versa), by means of targeted exercises, in fact, improve in turn the child’s reading skills, text comprehension abilities and the number of words read per minute, decreasing the number of fixations and regressions. Moreover, oculomotor skills and comprehension skills are both dependent on attention: their training, therefore, requires attention and it may be said that improvements in attention improve these skills but also (more importantly), improvements gained form training can improve attention skills.
Keywords
Dyslexia, development, reading, eye movements, speed.