input of information through the visual-motor system. Basically, a variety of eye-related

muscles are involved in eye movement. Measuring eye movement involves an

examination of the number of fixations, duration of fixation, and the sequence of picture

elements fixated. These eye fixations are called saccades and become more articulated as

a child grows. When a preschooler looks between different objects, he or she typically

uses head and neck movements rather than eye movements. By age 6 or 7, the child

should be able to read a book or a board with proper eye movements and without moving

his or her head or body (Schieman, 2002). Due to body or neck movement, a student who

has low functioning eye-movement skills may have difficulties in keeping his or her

place while reading or adding numbers in columns (Scheiman, 2002). Further, reading

speed may be reduced due to slow eye movements, recurrent loss of place, or due to a

small span of recognition (the width of text that is processed per fixation). Therefore, we

may conclude that underachieved or incorrectly developed eye movement may be

associated with reading difficulties. A study conducted with a selected group of 17

children with reading disabilities and 21 without reading disabilities found that visual

tasks such as eye movement and visual search are able to differentiate good and poor

readers as well as phonological tests (Eden et al., 1993). Specifically, Eden and his

colleagues (1995) found some visual deficits including vertical tracking and vergence

control in eye movement skills were stronger predictors than some other verbal skills.

Their findings strongly support the hypothesis that some children with reading difficulties

have visual problems. In summary, Rayner (1995) recapitulated the process of reading

and eye movements by introducing five principal issues: (a) the span of effective vision,

(b) integration of information across eye movements, (c) eye movement control (where to