Buy Ottlite LED Reader's HD Bookstand Lite BookstandLite - White

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When my 6 year old son suddenly had a vision change from 15/20 to 60/20 within 5 months, I started doing extensive research on eye issues in growing children. The rate of change in the eyes of a developing child before the age of 15 is very dramatic. After 15 year of age, the eyes' rate of change slow down. That means a child subjecting his/her eyes to accommodation (i.e. reading at close range or proximity) will develop myopia faster at 6 years of age than at 15 years of age.

Within the 5 months time in which my son's eyes changed from 15/20 to 60/20, he had read approximately 250 books. His eye exam with an opthamologist showed that he had myopia with no other eye problems or issues. The opthamologist prescribed glasses for him to see things in the distance. I, however, did not want him to have glasses yet. I reasoned that if the eyes can change so drastically for the worse in such a short period of time, the eyes can also improve (as long as accommodation changes in the eyes for close range work had not yet become permanent.)

I began to change the way my son read and did close range work. Following any prolong close range work, my son would take 10 15 minutes breaks where he read small letters from across the room. I bought the Ott-Lite bookstand where my son would read books from 1.5 arm lengths away. I bought the Ott-Lite bookstand because it had an adjustable back which could be changed to accommodate my son's height. This was very useful since different chair and table heights often placed my son's vision at different angles (with respect to the book)which could then be easily corrected by tilting the bookstand backward or forward to varying degrees. The Ott-Lite also had built in lights which helped to illuminate the book he was reading in areas where lighting was poor. My son was also able to double the bookstand as a writing table at times. And I liked the fact that one can increase the width of the bookstand by pulling out the sides. To fit taller books, we just moved the light fixture back. It is true that sometiems the bottom lines of a book are blocked because the book sits deeply into the bookstand. However, my son easily solved the problem by placing two jenga blocks where the book sits in the bookstand to move the bottom page higher up for viewing. In addition, we like thattThe bookstand is made of strong plastic and does not feel flimsy. It can withstand the abuse and use by a 6 year old.

It has been about three months since my son has been diagnosed with myopia which requires glasses. We recently took him to see the same opthamologist for his follow-up eye exam. My son's vision is now at 40/20 in one eye and 30/20 in the other eye. The opthamologist said, "At this point, I would not prescribed glasses for him. It seems his eyes have improved."

We plan on continuing our son with proper reading posture and using the Ott-Lite bookstand to obtain our goals.

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The design concept looks good, but details of the design and implementation leave a great deal to be desired. Two aspects especially annoy me:

(1) The lip intended to hold the current page position of a book is too high, so that it interferes with the opening mechanism of a ring-looseleaf-binder. This could have been avoided by making it swivel out of the way when not wanted, or replacing it with a couple of swiveling rods similar to those on other bookstands.

(2) The lamp is too dim to be much help.

Recommendation to would-be purchasers: find another product!