The teacher appraisal form asked teachers to agree or disagree with a series of statements concerning student achievement in relation to peer ability, individual ability, referrals to the school nurse, etc. A modified checklist of possible visual problems was utilized for teacher observations. This analysis indicated the greater failure rate of the alternative students was at the .01 level of significance for the Stereopsis subtest and at the .05 level for the Tracking, Hyperopia, and Color Vision subtests. The greater number of alternative students failing one or more subtests was at the .05 level of significance. Tracking, Visual Acuity-Near, and Visual Motor Integration are very important tests because they detect visual problems at the reading distance of 13 to 16 inches, a distance at which most school learning experiences occur.
Tracking is particularly important in learning to read.
Since reading incorporates language acquisitions, the visual verbal process, and tracking, if one lacks the ability to efficiently move one's eyes across a page of print, this is likely to interfere with one's reading development. Many at-risk students may not be aware that they have a visual problem. Instead, they may simply believe that they have a reading or learning problem. This self-perceived learning problem along with undetected visual problems is likely to frustrate many of these students. In spite of working hard at their studies, these children may be unable to keep up with their classmates.