Beyond the School Screening - A Back‑to‑School Vision Health Checklist

“Passed” the school screening but homework still ends in tears? Screenings are helpful, but they don’t answer the most important question for real‑life school days: Are your child’s eyes working overtime - overcompensating for a lack of clarity or poor focus? 

To get clear answers, schedule a comprehensive pediatric eye health exam for your child with Dr. Jennifer Raska, here at Central Eye Care, and bring simple notes about your observations. Those notes can be incredibly helpful to the exam and allow us to connect what you see at home with what we measure in the chair.

What to watch for:

• Comfort: Is your child experiencing headaches after school or after 15–20 minutes of near work? Frequent eye rubbing? Or even watery eyes?

• Distance clarity: Ask your child’s teacher if they are squinting at the board, or have asked to move closer? Do you find that they are missing far‑away details in sports?

• Sustained focus: Does work start strong then fade? Do they complain that print looks fuzzy by the end of a homework assignment?

• Night glare in teens: Ask your teen if they are seeing halos or glare when beginning night‑driving practice. Do they complain about light sensitivity when headlights are coming toward them?

Bring a few notes like these to your visit! They help us connect everyday experiences to what we measure, and can help inform testing and tweaks to prescriptions.

After the exam  -  quick daily wins at home

• Screens: use the 20‑20‑20 rhythm and keep devices about an arm’s length away. Increase text size for comfort and switch to warmer screen tones in the evening.

• Task lighting: pair a soft room light with a brighter desk lamp. Aim the lamp over the shoulder opposite the writing hand to avoid shadows and reduce glare on glossy pages.

• Homework setup: feet flat, shoulders relaxed, screens at eye level. Print longer reading passages and papers if small screens cause strain.

• Reading time: choose a well‑lit spot, blink fully and often, and pause to look across the room between chapters.

• Night routine: wash hands and face, clean and store glasses or lenses in the same spot, rest tired lids with a cool cloth for a minute, dim lights 30–60 minutes before bed, and tuck sunglasses into a hard case the backpack for tomorrow.

The notes  you bring and the measurements we take work together to give your child clearer, more comfortable days at school. If vision is part of any learning or extra-curricular activity related challenges, we will address it with the right Rx and fit - if it’s not, you can check it off the list with confidence and plan your next, annual exam so we can keep an eye on how their vision evolves. Whatever the results, add a little eye health self-care to their daily routines to help carve out habits that will support their vision for a lifetime.