Free training for teachers in how to spot a little-known eye defect known as visual dyslexia is being explored in Birmingham.
Vision experts believe thousands of youngsters are falling behind at school because of a failure to identify the condition that can be corrected using coloured lenses.
About five per cent of the population is believed to suffer the defect, also known as visual stress.
Education chiefs in Birmingham are planning to team up with eye specialists at Aston University, one of the first places in the country to screen for the condition, to offer the training.
Classroom assistants as well as teachers would be targeted.
The pilot scheme is being considered in the wake of interest generated from a conference held at the university last year to highlight visual stress.
Councillor Les Lawrence (Con Northfield), Birmingham City Council's cabinet member for education, said: "Anything that leads to early intervention and improvement in education would be welcomed."
Symptoms of visual stress range from words appearing to swim around on the page and letters fading or changing in size to nausea, dizziness and headaches.
In many cases a radical difference is made by wearing spectacles with coloured corrective lenses.
Screening for the condition, however, is patchy. In Birmingham, there are only about two or three opticians with the specialist equipment, called a Colorimeter, needed to detect and treat sufferers. Nationally, there are 160.
Colour for Vision, a pressure group which organised the Birmingham conference, believes all children experiencing trouble at school should be tested.
The group's spokeswoman, Christine Fitzmaurice, said: "I am convinced that this is a very significant reason why some of them lose interest in learning and can't see a way forward at an early age."
