When students struggle, the temptation is to attribute poor performance to one of the Big A’s — aptitude or attitude. The suspicion is that the students are either unable to understand the assignment or simply don’t care.
Those are harsh conclusions, judgments that may handicap a child throughout his or her school years and beyond. Sadly, that verdict may prove to be accurate for some students. Yet for many others it amounts to error in diagnosis, and a damaging one at that.
A generation ago, before we terms such as Attention Deficit Disorder or Dyslexia were commonly known, students who displayed symptoms of these disabilities were generally considered to be discipline problems or mentally challenged. Once we understood what was going on, treatments followed, forever altering the lives of millions of children.
The truth is, there are many, many reasons why children may not succeed in academics, often through no fault of their own. In many of those cases, the solution is easily attained, once the root of the difficulty is discovered.
We are reminded again of this as the state’s third-grade students face “third-grade gate” testing, a law established three years ago requiring all third-graders to read at the third-grade level before being promoted to fourth grade.
Through a joint program offered by the Mississippi Optometric Association and Mississippi Vision Foundation, all students who fail the initial third-grade gate test can qualify for no-cost eye exams. The program began when the third-grade reading requirement went into effect.
According to the data collected by the sponsoring organizations, the two previous results from the eye exam programs found that 88 percent of students who were examined needed some form of visual intervention. The release also notes that 25 percent of school age children have vision problems. More than 80 percent of those children, it says, do not get the assistance they need.
The program not only provides for screening, but supplies eye-glasses to those students who need them, but may not be able to afford the cost.
As this program so clearly illustrates, a student who struggles academically may have an underlying medical condition that makes learning more difficult.
The earlier these conditions are identified and treated, the better the student’s prospects for a successful educational experience and all that follows.
We applaud the Mississippi Optometric Association and Mississippi Vision Foundation for stepping in to provide help in this critical stage of so many of our children’s lives and encourage teachers and parents to look beyond the Big A’s, when a young student struggles in the classroom.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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