Parents want to see their children do well in school . But too often a large portion of school children struggles to read due to different causes. Vision is one of the major reasons. When vision interferes with a child’s ability to read, chances are his success in school suffers

Such is the case of Eljames Sara, a grade 1 student of SANTIAGO DE GUZMAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. His parent is starting too loose hope  in dealing with his reading comprehension . But it was in  this  Eric Martinez Seeing Clearly (ESEE) project of  the Vice Mayor of Valenzuela City that made them realized Eljames has some visual anomaly.

As his turn came for his vision screening   I ask him to focus on the chart posted on the wall and ask him to tell me the letters he can see, I noticed he has difficulty visualizing the letters, I ask him “ can you read it for me?” He answered “Ma’am I do not see letters,  but I can see stars and moon”. Naturally with his visual problem indicators, I suspected this kid has a vision problem. Indeed after thoroughly checking his vision his correction shows  R -8.00D sph L -10.00 Dsph of nearsightedness .

Eljames is one of the recipients of prescription glasses from the 23,000 school children we have screened. His dream of having his prescription glasses can now be made possible through the collaborative effort of Vice Mayor Eric Martinez and the City Government of Valenzuela together with the assistance of Physicians for Peace Philippines.

His mom was overwhelmed with joy upon learning that  Eljames has  no poor reading comprehension , albeit his slow reading is due to his poor vision.

Dr. Maricris P. Lim