Letter from a Recent Graduate and Medical Student: Christopher Jordan

Ever since I can remember I have always been a slow reader. When my teacher would send students down the hall to read I would always get in trouble because I’d come back pages behind everyone else. When I read aloud I spoke correctly and pronounced all the words but I never knew what I was saying. Eventually I figured out that if I took my work home then I could take as much time as I needed. I was probably the only kid in school who actually enjoyed homework! In my mind the problem was fixed and my grades never suffered. However, on standardized timed tests my problems were only magnified as I could not escape the fact that I was just an incredibly slow reader. Unfortunately in today’s society both a school’s and a student’s performance is measured by these tests and by all accounts I didn’t measure up. As I continued my pursuit of higher learning the “reading monster” came back to get me again. Universities emphasize a more self-directed curriculum which involves divulging important information from required texts. This was a formidable challenge for someone like me. I noticed that I was spending an inordinate amount of time studying relative to my classmates. When I would take tests I was constantly one of the last students finished. This again was not a serious problem except on tests which took most of the students the entire time. On those tests I felt so rushed that I would bubble in answers to questions I never read and still not have time to really think through the questions that I actually completed.  My grade point average suffered because of it, however not enough to prevent me from being successful. In my mind, being able to achieve my goals allowed me to overlook a problem that never really went away.  I was able to continue this pattern until I attended medical school. Medical school is just as tough as people describe and thus my problems were exaggerated more than ever. The amount of reading required in medical school seemed unbearable. However, I have always been told that medical school becomes your life so I thought I made the same sacrifices most other medical students make. I isolated myself because I had to study “all the time.” Even still, it seemed that my methods just weren’t cutting it. I tried to keep up with the readings but I just couldn’t do it. When I would read I would fatigue and get headaches. My retention and comprehension seemed to get worse. Eventually, I even got glasses because I thought that was the problem. I continued to struggle but the school told students to expect that you might not be at the top of the class because of the difficulty of the curriculum. However, I never expected to be near the bottom.  At the end of my second year that’s when things finally came to a halt. I had to take another standardized test, the first part of the medical licensing examination. This exam is a grueling seven hour endeavor. After taking the exam twice and failing both times I was left in disarray. My dreams were in limbo and I was left in despair. On a suggestion by my mom I went to the Flint Vision Therapy group to get tested. She had told me that they had treated students like me with similar complaints in the past. Within ten minutes of speaking to Dr. Habermahl he seemed to understand exactly what I had been going through. He diagnosed me with convergence insufficiency, which he said was treatable. We sat down, made a schedule and got right to work. I worked directly with one of Vision therapy’s trained staff members, Kyle. The one-on-one therapy with her allowed us to build rapport. Kyle was able to continue to challenge my limits without pushing me over the edge. I started with different games and exercises to get my eyes to work together and then we worked on my reading speed. In a three month time I was able to move from a third grade reading speed comprehension level up to a first year college student. I was able to make up a lot of ground in a short time and more importantly I was able to finally pass my licensing exam. By no means will I say I’m completely cured but through the Vision Therapy Group I was able to learn the necessary tools that I had been missing for years. Now I can concentrate, remain focused, and read better than ever before. In addition I was given tools to better adapt to the learning style I have developed to compensate for my poor reading. The combination of improvements will help me throughout the rest of my education and my medical career. I feel blessed and fortunate to have been able to find out about the Vision Therapy Group and get the help I needed. Now I hope to spread the word. There are so many kids that may have similar problems that I had and early intervention could make a world of difference. I hope to those who read this they see how important reading skills are in education. They are vital and with them they allow students to reach the maximum of their abilities. Thank you Vision Therapy Group for all the help you provided to me and to all the other people you reach.