"Oh, is that what you mean by a word?"

Ex SEN teacher Bob Hext is Managing Director of Crossbow Education Ltd, which he started in 1993 to publish the literacy games he was developing to help his dyslexic students with their reading and spelling. In 2005, Bob and his wife Anne designed and patented the Eye Level Reading Ruler to support children with Visual Stress. In 2006, The Eye Level Reading Ruler was runner up SEN product of the year at the BESA Educational Resources Awards. Since then Bob and Anne have worked with leading academics in the field to widen their range of Visual Stress support products, which now include A4 overlays, tinted exercise books and pads, as well as computer-related products. Bob started teaching in 1973, and has wide experience in many environments, as a class teacher, Head of Department, and SEN teacher. Bob is an experienced training provider and has spoken on various aspects of Dyslexia teaching at Conferences and CPD events over the years, including Education North in April 2011, and will be presenting the seminar “Reading Writing and Colour” at Special Needs London on Saturday 15th Sept 2011.

Crossbow are a trusted “first stop” for many SENCOs looking for “dyslexia-friendly” teaching materials for literacy, from decodable phonic readers to spelling games and handwriting resources. Their visual stress support products are now used in 60% of the schools in the UK, and are also sold in the USA through their North Carolina subsidiary, Crossbow Education Corp. Crossbow were short listed for the Supplier of the Year award at the BESA Educational Resources Awards 2011.

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An 11 year old boy (we’ll call him Joe), in his final year of Primary School, was being tested recently for Visual Stress - the syndrome often associated with dyslexia that causes words and letters to distort or appear to “jump around” on white paper. At the time of the assessment, which puts a series of different coloured overlays on the page to tint the background colour, he was unable to blend C-A-T to make “cat”. The assessor had worked through the single colours in the test, with no significant difference between a single colour tint and white paper. He was now in the final stages of the assessment, using double overlays to deepen the tint on the page of text. When Joe was given a double blue overlay, he sat back and said: “Oh! Is that what you mean by a word? Can I start learning to read now?”

Successive governments have attempted to raise literacy standards in school, commissioning expertise to inform policy, which has resulted in such milestones as the National Literacy Strategy introduced by the incoming government in 1997, and the renewed Primary Framework of 2006, which put phonics at the heart of teaching reading. Commissioned in 2005, the Rose Review stressed that the systematic learning of synthetic phonics was crucial to the teaching of reading, and in 2007 the “Letters and Sounds” programme was launched to ensure that the appropriate material was freely available to all schools. The present government has picked up this baton and this year launched the match-funding programme, offering match-funding of up to £3,000 to all state-funded schools in England with Key Stage 1 pupils so that they can buy approved systematic synthetic phonics products and training. Following the Rose Review, Lord Adonis, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools and Learning, wrote in November 2007:

“We now have a clear, tried and tested method of teaching our children how to read. Since we know what works, there should be no question of any child being left behind.”

No child left behind – except of course, for Joe, and thousands like him, who cannot put three letters together because they won’t stay still on the page. According to research by professor Arnold Wilkins of Essex University, Visual Stress is most probably caused by “cortical hyperexcitablility”: a condition which results in certain cells in the visual cortex being over-stimulated by specific rays in the colour spectrum, and resulting in a disrupted visual image of the word. Whatever phonics programme Joe is presented with, he will not start learning to read unless that interference is filtered out, in his case by a deepish blue tint. Until then, it is a lost cause.

The message is simple: do the Maths

When children like Joe are left behind they eventually lose interest in education, and seek success and self-esteem in other areas. Some are fortunate enough to succeed in sport or the arts, but many are not so lucky. Many criminal careers start with educational failure:

“Nearly half of male sentenced prisoners were excluded from school and nearly a third of all prisoners were regular truants whilst at school and more than half of male and more than two-thirds of female adult prisoners have no qualifications at all.”
Prison Reform Trust (2003/2004) Report on ‘Social Characteristics of Prisoners’.

There are various statistics on literacy levels among prisoners, but most sources agree that around 50% of prisoners have a reading level below that which would be expected of an 11-year old. Research by Professor Wilkins published in his book Reading Through Colour (Wiley 2003) suggest that as much as 22% of the population suffers with varying levels of Visual Stress. So, how many prisoners are like Joe? 10%? 20%? More?

UK Figures from HM Prison Service, National Audit Office and Ministry of Justice tell us that there are 85,419 prisoners in England and Wales (BBC News, 29 March 2011) and that the average cost of keeping someone in prison is £47,000 per year. That’s over £4 billion a year.

There are about 17,000 primary schools in the UK, all eligible for £3000 match-funding for phonics materials that are a waste of money for the likes of Joe. That’s £51 million. Yet 17,000 Visual Stress Assessment Packs that would pick up the likes of Joe would cost just £850,000. At 11, Joe is still desperate to start learning to read. At 15, he probably won’t be. Yet there is no national screening for visual stress in schools, in the UK or anywhere else.

The message to decision makers, whether in schools or in governments, is simple. Do you want to save a lot of money? Do you want Joe to have a life? Do the maths. Take Visual Stress seriously.