6yr old writing letters back to front ???

[NervousNutty]

Ds is 6 and coming to the end of yr1.

I have noticed a few times when doing homework with him that he occasionally writes a letter back to font.

The thing is, even when shown that it is wrong he often still can't see it.

I have just been to literacy workshop in hs class and they had to write a fantasy story.

The title of Ds's story was Dracula. He did a capital D but did it back to front. I asked him if he could see anything wrong with it and he said no. I asked him to look again, and look at the D written on the alphabet line on the wall. He looked, compared to two and still said there was nothing wrong with his. I then told him it was back to front and he insisted it wasn't.
He only agreed that it was wrong when his teacher drew a D on the paper in front of him and even then he had to think about it before writing it again himself.

So, is that normal for a 6yr old to do that ?? I know alot of children that age still have trouble writing, and ds's writing in general is poor, but I am worried that he couldn't see the mistake even when shown.

Sorry, meant to add thhat he also sometimes does numbers back to front too, and I always ask him to see if he knows whats wrong with it first and he never does.

Bump

Ds1 needed a lot of extra help to get his letters the right way round. Strangely the thing that worked best was teaching joined-up writing. He still often writes some numbers backwards though - usually 2,3 and 5 - so I'm still looking into that one myself.

I don't know anything about whether a child should be able to see mistakes when shown but will give this a bump in case anyone can help.

my 6 years olds (I have twins) do that sometimes too - I don't think it is uncommon.

Thanks Coppertop

He is currently recieving extra help with handwriting, and sentence structure, as stated on his IEP and they haven't mentioned this to me, but then his teacher has completely backtracked since I asked for the IEP anyway.

And throckenholt.

I just found it slightly alarming that he thought that the letter looked the same back to front as the right way around.

It is, at this agem still quite common for children to reverse letters and numbers. Many of the Y1 children in the class I work in do this. It does not seem to be linked to ability either.

This should generally be corrected by the time a child is 7y or end of Y2. My 7y DD still reverses b and d at times but aving been assessed last week she shows no areas of concern and we will work on this. DD is reading way above her chronological age and her spelling is also more than a year ahead. Just her b/d confusion.

I would keep an eye on it and see how t goes.

Does he form his letters correctly?

My son, also 6 does this from time to time. Its really normal i think.

My DD now 7 (statemented) also sometimes forms her letters back to front but also writes from the right hand side of the page to the left hand side of the page, every letter perfectly formed backwards and every word perfectly written backwards. Whenever I mention this to school, they don't seem to think it is too much of a problem (when they showed me her school work, it doesn't seem to occur as often as it does at home - she loves playing schools and doing her homework - even when she hasn't got any, she will practice her handwriting and write stories). She is also left handed which probably doesn't help. The school are not unduly worried and, therefore, neither am I.

I've seen a few of them do that (exactly as bumblelion said), and just outgrow it fairly shortly. freaks dh right out though.

My ds8 still does this and numbers too - he really has to think about it and its only recently that he could actually see what was wrong.

He is on School ACtion plus and is under educational psychologist but she is not too concerned about that bit - she says its quite normal especially for little boys

Thanks all

To answer your question Hula, his letter formation is very poor. He is having extra help with this for 5 min every day in class and I am doing letter practise with him at home too, using workbooks provided by his teacher.

He can do the letters correctly when using these books but reverts back to his own writing style as soon as he doesn't have them to guide him.

I will keep and eye on it and maybe mention it to the senco at his review in the autumn.

I think it could be the letter formation ssue that is causing some of the reversals erhaps.

With DD she doesn't always form her b and d correctly. She taught herself to write very early and before we had really noticed, so she got into bad habts. Every other letter is now formed. However because of the way she forms b and d she has a tendancy to reverse them. This is what we are working on now.

You may find that as his formation improves he will reverse less, like is happening when he is using the books to help him.