Abstract Background Although most patients with visual impairment due to corneal diseases can be treated successfully with surgery, some require visual rehabilitation to restore reading ability. To evaluate the best LVAs especially in terms of reading speed and characterize this specific patient group we performed a prospective, randomized cross-over trial. Methods All 34 patients underwent a detailed examination (slit-lamp, funduscopy, SD-OCT, ETDRS) as screening. Only patients with corneal diseases without other ocular diseases were included. Reading-speed was assessed with International-Reading-Speed-Texts (IReST) consecutively with five different LVAs (low vision aids) during one day in a randomized cross-over design. Corneal haze was quantified with corneal densitometry (Pentacam). Results Patients were either visually impaired (n = 28), severely impaired (n = 4) or legally blind (n = 2). Patients read significantly faster with LVAs (p