Eyesight link to reading difficulties

One child in every classroom may experience difficulty reading due to an undiagnosed eye condition, research has suggested.

The little-detected condition is known as ‘visual stress’.

Children with the condition are sensitive to light, and words on a page would appear to them as blurry.

Although conventional eye tests would not detect the condition, it can be easily corrected with tinted contact glasses, or by placing transparent coloured sheets of plastic over the text.

Around 800 children aged seven and eight were involved in the research project carried out by Professor Arnold Wilkins at the University of Essex.