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Lisbet
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| Posted: Jan 21 2008 at 11:07am | IP Logged
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My 8 year old has very neat handwriting, very good eye hand coordination, and knows his left from right very well. But it seems no matter how much he practices, he writes SO many numbers and letters backwards. Capital letters and small letters, and lots of them, not just the ordinary d,b mix up. What can I do to help him? Thanks!
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Lisa, wife to Tony,
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Abby, 15
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Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
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Mary G
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| Posted: Jan 21 2008 at 11:22am | IP Logged
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Lisa,
My Maggie (almost 8) and Thomas (just turned 9) have this problem too ... Thomas has extremely neat writing but turns his d's and b's as well as 3's, 7's and 9's and some others. Maggie's writing is appalling in comparison and she too turns some ...
JP (5) on the other hand, when he writes rarely turns any of his.
I'm thinking it's because dh and I are both left-handed and T & M are used to doing the reverse of what they see me do ... including their using their left hand to do the signof the cross!
JP, on the other hand, is left-handed and so this might be why there isn't a problem there.
So, no advice but commiseration and a possible explanation?
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3 boys (22, 12, 8)2 girls (20, 11)
my website that combines my schooling, hand-knits work, writing and everything else in one spot!
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Lisbet
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| Posted: Jan 21 2008 at 11:56am | IP Logged
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Mary, He is left handed, so is dh. But he works at the table with his older siblings that are right handed--maybe that has something to do with it?
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Lisa, wife to Tony,
Mama to:
Nick, 17
Abby, 15
Gabe, 13
Isaac, 11
Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
Cecilia born 10.29.10
Josephine born 6.11.12
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mom2mpr
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| Posted: Jan 21 2008 at 1:28pm | IP Logged
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My ds is 10 and rarely turned his letters when learning to write--but also rarely did handwriting. I am left handed and he is right handed--but did not choose that until he was around 5-6-ish. It didn't seem to impact his writing. Unless the "delay" picking which hand to use was because he was trying to figure out how to write with a lefty mom. His handwriting was beautiful, but isn't quite beautiful now. i think it is his age.
DD who is 5 and loves writing turns EVERYTHING!!
Especially numbers. She is challenging me. She is also a righty.
We do enjoy Handwriting Without Tears. DD is in not into the real writing books yet just the Get Ready for School book. HWT may have helped ds learn to write with a lefty mom. He was pretty independent in learning handwriting with those books.
Just our experience for what it is worth.
Anne
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helene
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| Posted: Jan 21 2008 at 3:49pm | IP Logged
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My son, 9, has the backwards problem, too. This year he has improved but still struggles. If your child has lots of trouble reading you may want to look at a list of clues to help you discern whether or not he has some dyslexia. I believe my son is mildly dyslexic. By the way, being left-handed is one of those clues. If there are no troubles reading, but only with writing, I would not suspect dyslexia, however.
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vmalott
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| Posted: Jan 22 2008 at 1:11pm | IP Logged
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My leftie 9yo dd has had this problem as well, but she has gotten better w/practice...no problems w/reading, either. She just started with the HWT cursive book and that is helping her as well, esp. since she has to follow that one way to do it correctly.
Valerie
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ALmom
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| Posted: Jan 22 2008 at 10:25pm | IP Logged
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Does your 8 year old know left and right when across from you? Ie, if you are standing across from him, facing him and ask him to raise his right or left hand or point to yours, will he identify it correctly or does he tend to get confused watching you. Some children learn left/right in themselves fine and seem to need a little help for the next step. The difference in handedness may just add an extra wrinkle to learning when you are already struggling with directionality outside of self.
My children might know right and left in themselves, but get utterly confused with me facing them across the room. This is the next step with directionality and it is easy to play games where you stand in front of the child facing the same direction, grab hands and identify it as right or left then turn around to face child while still holding onto their hand. Obviously the hand has to still be the same one. Sometimes, letter reversals are a result of directionality issues so games like this certainly don't hurt. If they get it doing this game, then you can always have fun with something like twister that is fast paced left/right.
Some ways to reinforce the correct letter formation is to write them in the air together, in sand, etc. and gradually bring it smaller and on pencil and paper.
Others have mentioned that if you notice other things like loosing place when reading, struggling with reading, etc. there may be other things involved. In our family, we had terrible reversals - pretty much every letter of the alphabet, and many numbers and also flipping words is became si and didn't make sense kind of stuff and also 12 became 21. Ours turned out to be a correctable vision problem that also effected the development of directionality. They knew left/right in themselves but not outside of themselves. With vision therapy, these problems seemed to correct themselves - but we did the above mentioned activities to encourage things along.
Janet
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mary
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| Posted: Jan 23 2008 at 6:32am | IP Logged
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lisa,
i think letter reversal is most often due to weak memory. here are some online games that are good at helping kids with writing, spelling, left/right, etc. good luck!
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Lori B
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| Posted: Jan 23 2008 at 1:00pm | IP Logged
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My son (my only dyslexic) has no problem with turn-arounds, but my 7yod does. She is also ambidextrous, and does everything with her left hand *except* writing. I've been told by her Early Intervention workers (for vision, not LD's) that reversing letters is very common in kids who are ambidextrous or left-handed. They suggested just loads of practice (we use a graded penmanship course) and pointing out the backwards letters EVERY time (not letting them get away with it  ). It's really a practice-makes-perfect thing.
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humanaevitae
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| Posted: Jan 24 2008 at 12:09am | IP Logged
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I really teach them to form their letters based on clock positions. They learn to form their letters from specific verbal instructions that they memorize. At first I thought this was overkill. Then I had a dd that really struggled with reversals and decided to give this thought a try.
Example:
Circular letters all start in the 2 position, the letter b starts in the 12 position...
This has helped us a lot.
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: Letters facing wrong direction
