An Investigation of the Relationship Between Reading Ability and Performance on the Red Glass Test

The primary purpose or this study was to determine if a difference is reading ability existed between children who perceived at equal speeds with both eyes and children who perceived faster with one eye than with the other. The pri11le motivation for this study was the reported improvement in reading made by children who were involved in a visual training program under the direction of Dr. Frank M. Root, a practicing optometrist in Cedar Falls, Iowa. A part or this visual training program was the use of the Red Glass technique, a procedure designed to equalize the speed of perception in the two eyes, When pupils continued to report improvement in reading as disparities in speed were reduced or eliminated, it was hypothesized that some relationship might exist between equality or inequality of speed of visual perception and reading ability. The present investigation was designed to test this idea in a controlled situation. An experimental situation was set up using a total of forty-four subjects, twenty-three from first grade and twenty-one from fourth grade at Malcolm Price Laboratory School in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The Red Glass Test, a procedure allowing for monocular viewing of the stimulus while giving the subject the impression that he is in a binocular setting, was used to determine the speed of perception of each eye. Data available on each subject included (1) intelligence quotient, (2) scores from three different reading tests and (3) results from the Red Glass Test. Statistical procedures used in the study were the t test of the difference between means of independent random samples and the point biserial correlation