A boy walks a figure-eight across the living room rug. His eyes stay locked on his mother’s face as he loops past her. Someone told her this would help him read. She wants it to work so much. Your child isn’t broken. Their brain is learning differently, and you deserve straight answers about what helps it.
“Implementing Infinity Walk for Dyslexia Aid”
During a discussion on aiding children with dyslexia, the Infinity Walk was highlighted as a beneficial tool. This exercise involves walking in a figure-eight pattern, which can be performed both indoors and outdoors. As explained, this physical activity helps improve eye movement, crucial for reading, by training the eyes to move across to the outer edges, similar to how one would scan a television screen or follow a person’s movements. The transcript specifically noted that without sufficient eye muscle strength, children might struggle to move their eyes across a printed page, feeling uncomfortable in the process. For parents, incorporating the Infinity Walk into their child’s routine could address these physical and sensory integration issues, potentially enhancing their reading and spelling abilities.
FROM THE VIDEO
Key moments from Dyslexia Life Hacks with host Matthew Head and therapist Usha Patel:
- 10:56Patel ties letter reversals to scanning the wrong way. Four pediatric and eye-care groups say reversals are not part of how dyslexia is defined.
- 17:07She says she was taught to read by whole-word recognition, not synthetic phonics, and explains how that mixes up words like spot and stop.
- 23:27She taught herself with Alpha to Omega, a synthetic phonics resource, then used it with children.
Common questions from parents
Does the Infinity Walk help with dyslexia?
Are letter reversals a sign of dyslexia?
Should I get my child’s eyes checked if reading is hard?
What does help a child who struggles to read?
A figure-eight walk to help a child read? Four pediatric and eye-care groups say vision does not cause dyslexia. The guest's own story points to phonics.
Is my child’s reading trouble an eye problem?
In the video, therapist Usha Patel shares a big idea. Reading, she says, is “an eye thing, an ear thing, a physical thing.” She teaches the Infinity Walk. A child walks a figure-eight and keeps their eyes on one fixed point. The idea: eyes trained to move wide will cross a page with ease. She also blames letter reversals, like b for d, on scanning the wrong way.
Four groups of doctors and eye experts answered this question together. Two are the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The other two are AAPOS and the American Association of Certified Orthoptists. Their joint statement says vision problems do not cause dyslexia. Kids who struggle to read have no more vision problems than other kids. And reversing letters is not part of how dyslexia is defined. The American Academy of Family Physicians goes a step further. Its Choosing Wisely list advises against vision therapy for dyslexia.
So where does the trouble sit? In linking sounds to letters. That is a sound skill, not a sight skill. Read more about this sound-based kind of reading trouble. Reversals do not point to the eyes either. Brooks and colleagues studied reversals in 2011. Half the children with no reading trouble at all reversed letters too. So reversals on their own are not a finding. This guide to the signs of dyslexia shows which ones point to reading.
None of this means you skip the eye doctor. If you think your child has trouble seeing, book the eye exam. That is a health check. It is not a reading plan.
Movement practice builds movement, and reading practice builds reading.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Does walking a figure-eight help a child read?
We looked for a large, controlled trial of the Infinity Walk that measured reading. We did not find one. That is a missing test, not a proven failure. But a close cousin of this idea has been tested.
The DDAT program, also sold as Dore, used daily exercises for balance and coordination. It promised better reading. Researchers Rack, Snowling, Hulme and Gibbs looked at it closely in 2007. Children got better at balance, threading beads and naming things fast. Their reading and spelling did not move. A study on handwriting went the same way (Denton, Cope and Moser, 2006). Children given movement training wrote worse. Children who practiced handwriting got better.
Our view is plain. Movement practice builds movement, and reading practice builds reading. Patel also talks about “reflex integration” and links learning gaps to a hard birth. Nothing in our research library backs that chain. So we won’t pass it on as fact. Here is more on why a stronger body doesn’t build a stronger reader.
Still, part of what she describes rings true. She says children relax once they know they won’t sit at a desk. Play takes the fear out of the room. If your child loves the walk, keep it. Do it alongside reading instruction, never in place of it.
Key takeaways
- Not the eyes: Doctors and eye experts agree vision doesn't cause dyslexia.
- Reversals are common: Half the children with no reading trouble reversed letters too.
- Phonics helped the guest: Taught whole words by sight, she later taught herself phonics.
What helped the guest learn to read?
The most useful moment in this interview is easy to miss. Patel says she was taught to read by whole-word recognition, not phonics. She learned words by their look. She says a reader taught this way might read “spot” as “stop.” The same letters are there, in a new order. In her words, that reader is not thinking about the letters inside the word.
So she taught herself with Alpha to Omega, a synthetic phonics resource. Then she used it with the children she worked with. In her own story, what helped was sounds and letters, taught in order.
That lines up with the science. Keith Rayner’s eye-tracking work found that skilled readers take in nearly every letter. As they improve, they lean more on letter sounds, not less. Guessing from pictures and context is what struggling readers do. Cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg calls that guessing method “descriptive of how poor readers read.”
This is a failure of the system, not of your child. For years, schools taught guessing as if it were reading. Emily Hanford’s 2019 series Sold a Story brought it into the open. States passed new reading laws in 2024 and 2025 to change it. Reading does not come on its own the way talking does. It has to be taught, step by step.
Your first move: ask how your child is being taught to read. Are letter sounds taught directly, in a set order? Is your child asked to sound words out, or to guess from the picture? Here is how to teach a child who was taught to guess.
If your child loves the walk, keep it. Do it alongside reading instruction, never in place of it.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
You want your child to read, and you want your effort to count. For years, the system taught guessing and left parents to sort science from sales. Nobody will ever advocate for your child as hard as you will. The free screener asks what you see at home and shows where to start. It is not a diagnosis. Only a professional evaluation opens an IEP or 504 plan. Take the free dyslexia screener.
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Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
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A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
