How important is visual tracking and scanning?
Have you notice that your child who can read, skip words or even lines when reading aloud? If you spot it, you should quickly try to fix the problem. As you know, this problem will affect their Oral Reading Aloud which is a ‘must-get’ marks. It will also impacts the understanding of the context that the child is reading.
What is Visual tracking and scanning?
Visual tracking is simply focusing on an object as the eye moves from left to right, right to left, up and down or in circular motions across a person’s visual sight.
Visual scanning is one’s ability to look for information efficiently in a systematic manner, from top to bottom and left to right.
Both skills are important for smooth reading as well as for sports. If a child cannot read word to word smoothly, he will suffer from poor comprehension as words are scrambled and meaning becomes muddled. For sports, good tracking is important to hit or catch a ball.
Activities to improve eye tracking
The most conventional method is placing your finger or any object about 30cm in front of your child, moving from left to right, up and down, slowing moving to circular motions. At the same time, observe your child’s eyes to see if they are following the object accurately.
For younger kids
- Do dot-to-dot pictures with them. There are free resources in the internet such as The Balance Everyday, Coloring.ws, All Kids Network which you can print out according to the age group.
- Play “I Spy with my little eye” game with them. I remember playing this game with my cousins when I was young.
- Play flashlight chases. Lie on your backs on the bed, and have your child chase your flashlight beam with his on the ceiling.
For older kids
- Play five stones with them. Yes, play that good old game. I think it is one of the best and fun activities for eye tracking exercises. Not only it will help in eye tracking but it is also excellent for eye-hand coordination.
- Complete mazes. There are tons of free printable mazes for different levels in the internet.You can check out All Kids Network, Raising Our Kids and Worksheet Fun for free printable mazes.
- Engage them in sports. Sports like badminton, table tennis, tennis, basketball etc not only improves eye tracking but also excellent for eye-hand coordination. If the kid is not ready for such sports, play ball catching with him.
And the list goes on..