Mirror-image writing 4-year-old - any advice?

[justaphase]

DS1 was 4 in October; he attends nursery attached to a school where they aim to teach kids to write their names before they start reception.

DS is not the keenest of writers, he has much more important things to do which I am fine with, but occasionally he will bring me a piece of paper proudly announcing: "Mummy look, I wrote my name!". This is invariably written from right to left, with the letters reversed in a perfect mirror image. If I point this out to him he gets very frustrated and argues that this is the correct way. He writes it with his left hand.

He can write with his right hand too, in the correct direction but much less neatly and seems less comfortable.

Strangely, for everything else he prefers using his right hand.

Has anybody experienced this? Should I be worried / trying to discourage / encourage or completely ignore??

Can it be an indication of some learning difficulty or an undiscovered talennt or both?

Please don't worry!!

I am a leftie for writing, who does everything else with the right hand, sports (yeah like 20 yrs ago). lifting a cuppa.

my dd is 7, and at 4 could not make up her mind which hand to use, altho she preffered her left by about 5 ish. She did mirror writng too, and i never discouraged her, as it looked correct to her. I think, when you are left handed there is a reason for this switching around, and for the writing to go backwards. I am sure someone else can tell us why.

Are you left handed at all?

dd is a leftie now, and it all came together quite naturally.

My ds2 (now nearly 6) did this - he is right handed. I don't know if he still does this sometimes at school (but he was definitely still doing it towards the end of Reception, ie last year). His (very experienced) teacher didn't seem at all concerned... He also wrote his numbers backwards and transposed numbers (eg would write 14 as 41)

I'm left handed, and I used to 'mirror write' too. Don't worry about it too much, just keep encouraging him to write with whichever hand he is most comfortable with.

I think this is very common, dd is nearly 6 and still does it sometimes (as do many of her classmates). I really wouldn't worry about it. Someone on here described it in a way that made sense to me...basically, think of it as a child drawing a bus - to him it is a bus no matter what way it is pointing, likewise his name is his name forward or backwards. To him when he writes his name backwards in mirror writing it is just as correct. Which is why he is adamant he is right... He'll get it in the end!

This is common and both mine (right handers) did it. I also worked in a pre-school for a few years and many of the children there did this also. It isn't an indication of an underlying problem so don't worry.

Thank you very much, this is very reassuring.

Nobody in our family is left handed so tthis is a totally new experience to us ...

I will just let him be then, one less thing to argue about ;)

Hi justaphase,
I'm right handed and used to mirror write a lot when I was really little. My mother looked into it at the time and she's always said that it was a sign of high intellect. Now, i have to say, she probably thinks i'm the best thing since sliced bread, so i'm not entirely sure i'd believe that from her, but I am a member of mensa (ooerr ;-). AND... Leonarda da Vinci wrote in mirror writing for all his journals!

I think the biggest challenge we have these days is 'fitting in' to teaching systems that don't necessarily recognise/ encourage skills that don't fall within the 'norm'. You're the one who needs to live with a lot of the feedback, tho; just figure out if you're happy encouraging creativity that might not get the 'right' feedback from schools... and then don't worry too much anymore about what other people think.. just what you think, and whether your DS is happy :-)

ds does mirror writing only, he is 5.4, and is good at reading and spelling, but struggles with the writing, it is all back to front. used to be upside-down too, which i found a bit surreal. he was sort of ambidextrous until about 3 months ago, now he seems to have settled on his right hand for writing but does lots of other things with his left hand (eat, clean his teeth, etc). he is clearly left-footed.
dh is left-handed, so we are still not totally convinced he won't turn out to be left-handed after all. his teacher doesn't seem worried at all, and told me to leave him to sort it out in his own good time.

thanks for this info. i just joined after finding this thread as was worrying that my 4year old boy was showing signs of something after i have found him mirror writing his name quicker than he writes it normally and with better formed letters....he also sometimes draws a picture but moves so heis drawing from an upside down position if you get me! not him being upside down but the paper being upside down

My dd did this and a technique I used was to get her to p,ace her right hand on the page and had her write to her hand.

Leonardo D'avinci was a mirror writer and in that period it was an acceptable form of writing.

i am new to this, so sorry but i do not know what a DD or a Ds is please could someone explain. My son is very good at art so he could be a budding da vinci

My dd (6) is right handed. When she was learning to write she got a new tennis racquet and proudly showed me where she had written her name. She had written her first and last name in perfect mirror writing.

I didn't make anything of it at the time and strangely she never did it again. Her teacher never mentioned if she did it at school and she is in YR1 now and writing well.

I wouldn't see it as a cause for concern, just part of the getting used to writing process. 4 is still very young.

My ds did this in reception aged 4 and it is very impressive to watch but also disconcerting. We were told not to worry by his teacher and he very soon stopped and by year 1 was writing normally. He is now 15, very bright and is predicted to get 10 A stars in his GCSEs this summer.

So I would say don't worry!

Dd daughter DS son not sure what first d is a twee darling or dear I think

Thanks for that

DD (5yo) mirror writes and is left handed.

HOWEVER, I was reading a Psychology journal a few months back about this - being left/right handed has no bearing on this. I thought it did due to flow, however in Arabic/Chinese/whatever scripts are written R-L. Someone mentioned up thread about drawing a bus. It's the same thing, it is about recognising the shapes - so your child is forming the shapes they know. The study also found that mirror writing (which as we know is common) has no correlation to intellectual ability.

You find plenty of evdance to suggest quite the opposite and left handedness does have bearing.

I did this when I was little, did all my writing in mirror writing for a while- don't know how long. I am a lefty and very intelligent(wink)