column jumping

Column Jumping is a wonderful activity which can facilitate development of skills which are essential in many activities we all participate in.

This activity is a kind of “pre-reading” activity. The “problem” to be solved here sets the stage for the emergence of looking ahead to the right of fixation for the next landing zone for the next fixation and to make the return sweep to begin again.

It facilitates rapid automated naming.

The scan pattern used mimics reading but without the load of reading for information.

The movements are larger and more regular than will be seen in reading.

Rob Lewis: A sample starting dialogue with a patient: Standing about 2 M from the chart set up at eye level: I’d like you to pick out two of the rows (pointing at the vertical rows) and read one letter from each row as fast as you can until you get to the bottom. After we do that, I ask, How did you do? Why did you pick those two rows. You got every letter right. Do you think you could go faster? Pick two different rows. This time I want you to go the fastest you can—so fast you will probably make a few mistakes. I laugh and tell them that if they get them all right, it is wrong. If they pick tow adjacent rows or an end row, I tend to tease them and tell them, “That’s too easy—See what it is like to use these two rows” and I pick, usually row 2 and row 4 for beginners. “Show me what you can do—go!” I may even verbally push, Faster!, Go!, Go!, etc. “Wow that was great! How many mistakes do you think you made? Can you go even faster? Which pair of columns do you think would be the hardest? Later we might go to three columns. “How is that different?” A fun variation is to ask them to go closer to less than a meter—Is it easier or harder from here?

Paul Harris: From here I like to add in a stopwatch. Some patients react very well to it and it sets the stage for them to feel better about themselves to the point that some will engage more openly with other children in ways they might not have before. It appears for these children that it helps with their self-esteem.