4yo unco-ordinated and neither left or right hand dominant - any clues?

[LargeLatte]

Morning all,

Had parents evening for my 4yo 9mo ds. He is well behaved at school and is progressing slowly but is being held back by 2 things - he has some degree of hearing loss which we knew about (hopefully just glue ear), but also he is unco-ordinated and seems to not have a strong preference for left or right handedness. When he rights he always uses his left but he is still struggling to form letters properly despite lots of practice. Everything else he switched from left to right hand. I was (and still am to a certain degree) ambidextrous (sp?) so I'm guessing that's probably it. But I'm wondering is there more we can do to get his brain and hands working together. It is so frustraing because he is a bright boy but is struggling to read because he can't hear the difference between the letter sounds and he's struggling to write stuff down too

Any thoughts, tips, suggestions gratefully welcomed.

He is still very young and this non dominance early on does happen for many children. There is probably some research you can read on this.

Instead of concentrating on letter formation try fun fine motor activites such as tracing with paint, cornflour and water, small fiddly lego or Knex, even binko sewing, anything fiddly that he enjoys. It should help with the fine motor coordination.

For gross/large movement, there are simple programmes available to help with this which focus on repetitive movements .e.g throw and catch a bean bag or ball, throw a bean bag into a hoop or bucket. Ten minutes a day, but it has to be fun and not related to any difficulty. Regular short sharp practise and praise will help him.

Children can start to avoid things if they know they find them difficult, and if he is finding it difficult he will soon pick up on your concern. Be confident, and find relaxed ways of improving his skills. If he still continues to find it increasingly difficult, then follow it up in school by talking to the teacher, who can ask for further help from a specialist teacher in school.

Thanks- he has just started enjoying little lego this month so that's a winner I think. I was watching him today drawing on a blackboard and he definitely used left and right which is a surprise. Thanks for your advice, its very helpful. The mums from the school are so competitive it drives me nuts so its nice to get some advice on here.