Office Hours

Monday 8:00am - 5:00pm
Tuesday 9:00am - 5:00pm
Wednesday 7:00am - 7:00pm
Thursday 7:00am - 5:00pm
Friday 7:00am - 4:00pm
Saturday CLOSED
Sunday CLOSED

Optometric Physicians NW
2222 James Street Suite A
Bellingham, Washington 98225

Phone: (360) 676-4030
Fax: (360) 676-8719

pre-school vision article
 

During the infant and toddler years, your child has been developing many vision skills and has been learning how to see. In the preschool years, this process continues as your child develops visually guided eye-hand-body coordination, fine motor skills, and the visual motor skills necessary to learn to read.

As a parent, you should watch for signs that may indicate a vision development problem, including a short attention span for the child’s age; difficulty with eye-hand-body coordination in ball play and bike riding; avoidance of coloring and puzzles and other detailed activities.

There are everyday things that you can do at home to help your preschooler’s vision develop as it should.

These activities include reading aloud to your child and letting him or her see what you are reading; providing a chalkboard, finger paints and different shaped blocks and showing your child how to use them in imaginative play; providing safe opportunities to use playground equipment such as a jungle gym and balance beam; and allowing time for interacting with other children and for playing independently.

By age three, your child should have a thorough optometric eye examination to make sure your preschooler’s vision is developing properly and there is no evidence of eye disease. If needed, your doctor can prescribe treatment including glasses and/or vision therapy to correct a vision development problem.

Here are several tips to make your child’s optometric examination a positive experience:

  1. Make an appointment early in the day. Allow about one hour.
  2. Talk about the examination in advance and encourage your child’s questions.
  3. Explain the examination in your child’s terms, comparing the E chart to a puzzle and the instruments to tiny flashlights and a kaleidoscope.

Unless recommended otherwise, your child’s next eye examination should be at age five. By comparing test results of the two examinations, your optometrist can tell how well your child’s vision is developing for the next major step. . .the school years.

Our Mission To You

Our family of eyecare professionals is committed to:

  • Providing you, your family, and our community with a lifetime of compassionate and unparalleled preventative eye care services and state of the art products.
  • Inspiring confidence through patient and community education.
  • Promoting visual excellence with an organized, caring and dedicated staff, and with doctors and staff who promise to stay in the forefront of eye care with continuing education, certification and licensure, and the latest instrumentation.

We welcome you to our team at Optometric Physicians Northwest.