## Your leaflet is more than a brochure
It *is* **four occupational therapy training tools** — the coloured band across the top, the dashed window in the lower-left panel, the character strips down both sides, and the yellow-and-sage strip along the bottom.
Nothing to buy. No app to install. Ready tonight.
**This guide covers each one.**
> 📖 **8 pages · A4 · illustrated · free · no sign-up**
### What's inside
**📏 Safe Reading Distance Elbow Ruler**
Child reading closer and closer? Three steps to set the minimum distance for their body.
**✂️ Visual Block-out Window**
Skipping lines? Needing a finger to keep their place? One cut solves it.
**🅰️ Wide-angle Saccade Chart**
One or two minutes a day to train the eye jump from left to right — the foundation of reading speed.
**🚀 Letter & Word Spacing Edge**
Writing bunched up or drifting apart? One character per cell.
### Plus one page the leaflet doesn't have
**Homework — when reading and writing happen together.**
This is where most parents go wrong: push the workbook further away and the child simply leans in to reach it, bringing their eyes *closer* than before. The guide covers the standard occupational therapy answer, and a way to do it at home tonight with something you already own.
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> ⚑ **These are practice tools, not treatment.**
> If there's no change after 4–6 weeks, or you notice other difficulties — slow writing, restlessness, short attention span, frequent emotional outbursts — it's worth a conversation with an occupational therapist.
>
> **Free 20-minute initial phone consultation** ☎ +852 9563 3607
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## Frequently Asked Questions
### How far should a child hold a book when reading?
**The Hong Kong Department of Health recommends a minimum reading distance of 30 cm.** Younger children with shorter arms may not manage this immediately, so a body-proportional minimum works as a transition: roughly 21 cm at age 4, 23 cm at 6, 25 cm at 8, 27 cm at 10 — the book must never come closer than that line.
The Hong Kong Children Eye Study measured 2,363 local children aged 6–8 and found a **mean habitual reading distance of 24.12 ± 4.73 cm**, below the DH recommendation. The same paper cites a reported 2.5× myopia risk at distances under 30 cm.
### How do I measure my own child's minimum reading distance?
**Have your child make a fist, hold it under their chin, and rest the elbow on the table. The distance from elbow to fist is that child's minimum reading distance.** This is the Harmon distance, after Dr. D.B. Harmon.
⚠️ Measure elbow to **fist (middle knuckle)**, not elbow to wrist. Elbow-to-wrist on a six-year-old is only about 18 cm and would place the book far too close.
### My child keeps skipping lines when reading. What helps?
**A reading window — a card with a rectangular opening laid over the page so only the current line is visible.** It works by reducing visual crowding: with surrounding text covered, the eye has nowhere to jump.
Slide the card down one line after each line, keeping it flat against the page rather than lifting it. Most children stop needing a finger to keep their place within two to three weeks.
### How can I improve cramped or uneven handwriting spacing?
**Lay a strip of equal-sized cells along the ruled line and have your child write one character per cell.** This builds a felt sense of how much space a character occupies, rather than relying on verbal reminders.
It is a transitional tool: once spacing is stable, remove the strip and check whether it holds on its own.
### What is saccadic training?
**A saccade is the rapid jump the eye makes from one point to another — the foundation of reading speed.** Training uses two columns of characters down the left and right edges of a sheet; the child keeps their head still and moves only their eyes, reading across and down.
One to two minutes, once or twice a day, is enough. Sit facing your child — head movement is only visible from the front.
⚑ Home practice **cannot measure** actual saccadic speed or accuracy, or compare against age norms. That requires standardised oculomotor testing by an occupational therapist.
### Homework means reading and writing at the same time. What distance applies?
**Reading distance is set by the eyes and the book can sit further away; writing distance is set by the arm and the paper must be within reach. One ruler cannot serve both.**
The occupational therapy answer is a **20–23° sloped work surface**, not a different distance. A slope brings the page closer to parallel with the face, so the child sees clearly without leaning forward, and the wrist extends naturally while writing. This was Harmon's own companion recommendation to the elbow distance.
At home: a 3–5 cm A4 ring binder laid flat-side-down under the workbook gives roughly 20°.
### Can these exercises replace an assessment?
**No.** These four tools help build better conditions for reading and writing, but they do not replace an occupational therapy assessment.
If there is no change after 4–6 weeks, or you notice other difficulties — slow writing, restlessness, short attention span, frequent emotional outbursts — it is worth speaking with an occupational therapist. PivOTal offers a free 20-minute initial phone consultation: +852 9563 3607.
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**References**
1. Department of Health, Student Health Service. *Myopia.* studenthealth.gov.hk
2. Zhang et al. (2023). *Effect of Myopic Undercorrection on Habitual Reading Distance in Schoolchildren: The Hong Kong Children Eye Study.* Ophthalmology and Therapy.
3. Harmon, D.B. Working-distance and 20° inclined-surface recommendations.
*Written by a registered occupational therapist at PivOTal Paediatric Development. Last updated: August 2026.*
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