You can google colored overlays for reading to find them commercially available and read interesting information.  Just remember this is the internet and some of the info is about selling them.  I got mine from National Reading Styles Institute (1-800-331-3117) www.nrsi.com   several years ago. They have them in their online catalog fro about $20.00,  I have seen them in several catalogs too.
   
  You actually give the students 2 at a time to try and they determine which they like best until, by process of elimination, you find their favorite.  The same color is not best for everyone.  It is a novelty at first, but the students who continue to use them beyond the  novelty stage often say it is still helping.  They describe it as "stopping the jumpy letters" and/or that it makes them "easier to read".  The teacher who did a workshop with the Prometheam board at a state technology workshop had been surprised that as she played with background and print colors that a struggling reader got very excited that she could see the words better with yellow on brown.  Five other students agreed.  It made me wonder if the old chalk boards with yellow chalk might not have been better for many.
   
  This is not the solution for everyone, but an inexpensive thing to try that may help some.  I have had students say it makes their eyes feel better, but I have not have the opportunity to see the dramatic improvements that some speak of.  
   
  Other new interesting theories involve the amount of sound in our environment today.  Research studies found that children living on lower floors closer to expressways or in neighborhoods close to often used railroads typically had lower IQ's.  This relates to the common link between reading difficulties and phonemic awareness--which is auditory discrimination skills which should develp in pre-school years.  Children who spend developmental years with a fairly constant din, may not be distinguishing fine differences in sounds or hearing--and especially the staccato sounds that are quick and explosive, such as t, d, and p.  I have no experience with programs that have been developed, but there are some that try to address this by presenting sounds very slowly and gradually speeding them up.  Another program allows adjustment of speed of material read to also aid the need for more time to process and hear differences.  There are some claims that these programs have made
 dramatic improvements in language skills (and therefore social skills) as well as repetitive behaviors (such as arm flapping) that result from frustration in autistic chuildren.  If sound over load and sensitivity is a result of not being able to discriminate and define language and noises, perhaps that theory even makes sense for some.
   
  I just wanted to throw out some interesting research and research related theories I have read recently. 
   
  Dana Newingham

       
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