Eye care professionals frequently encounter patients who complain of perceptual distortions, somatic symptoms, and inefficient reading when engaged in school work or other near point tasks. Several theories have been put forth to explain these common symptoms, which occur in both children and adults who have reading problems or disabilities. The various theoretical explanations include oculomotor deficits, noise within the visual system, and deficient magnocellular pathways. I will present recent data on the association between visual symptoms and various visual factors in a group of college students and school-aged children without reading disability, which point to oculomotor factors as a primary cause of symptoms when reading and studying. These findings will be discussed in the context of current eye care treatments for visual factors that adversely affect reading.