In late August 2006, twenty-two staff members from Pinconning Central Elementary School attended Vision Start professional development to become acquainted with the Vision Start program. Vision Start's purpose is to help students who are below grade level in reading.

In September 2006, fifty students in grades 2-6 were referred by their classroom teachers as potential participants in Vision Start. The students were pre-tested using the HTS (Home Therapy System) and the PTS (Perceptual Therapy System.). Each student was also tested with an auto refractor to check for vision problems. Dr. Bruce Christianson, director of the Excel Vision Therapy Center in Battle Creek, Michigan, selected 21 students to receive vision therapy. The students had the opportunity to attend daily 20 minute computer sessions up to a maximum of 60 sessions. Only 75% of the students attended 90% of the sessions. School success is critical to the students’ success.

For comparison purposes, the control group is also the students in each grade for Pinconning Central Elementary School (157 students). The results are displayed in the following spread sheet.

Conclusion
Using the standardized STAR reading test for pre-test and posttest data, the
Vision Start students exceeded the improvement of the Control Group in all categories. The 4th grade students in VS showed the greatest improvement. The 3rd grade showed the least improvement, perhaps due to the fact that 80% of them were Special Education students. Even then, the Special Education students nearly met the improvement levels of all 3rd graders.
Final Comments: Initially the 2nd graders had limited keyboarding skills. They also had difficulty with upper and lower case letters. Vision Therapy helps students strengthen their eye muscles. Stronger eye muscles will increase the ability to focus, as well as increase attention span, thereby, making the student a better reader.

Rodney L. Fegan
Instructional Vision Learning Coordinator
Vision Start