Reading With Colors

Barbara Laws, a first grade teacher in Grandblanc, Michigan, was experimenting with colors. Some of her most disruptive students (who had difficulty reading) found using color overlays improved their attention and reading. Law had discovered the idea in the book Reading by the Colors, by Helen Irlen, published by the Irlen Institute in California. Irlen’s research revealed that 40 percent of students with reading problems actually had visual problems, many of which could be overcome through visual correction.