Writing letters and numbers backwards, normal or not?

[Pheebe]

DS1 is 6 in a couple of weeks. He's progressing well at school by all accounts, enjoys his time there and enjoys the extra stuff DH and I do at home with him. He's starting to read and his writing is improving. My concern is that he frequently writes letters (mainly b's, d's, s's, t's) and numbers (mainly 2, 3, 5, 7) backwards, as in mirror image. Also just before they broke up for summer he wrote his whole name backwards as in every letter and the whole word as a mirror image the wrong way across the page. Quite an amazing feat really and it was fasinating to watch but it has raised the spectre of dyslexia in my mind. He genuinelly didn't realise he's done it until I pointed it out to him. DH is mildly dyslexic as is my sister.

Is this normal? His reception teacher brushed it off, but he hadn't written his name backwards when I spoke to her. Should I raise it with his Y1 teacher or just wait and see if it improves?

Yes quite normal at that age. DS2 (Age 6) did this for a while. He could do the mirror writing thing as well. He is left handed and we put it down to that but he writes well now.

Ahh, thats a relief. I think its time I did some homework on child development, my phd in plant DNA doesn't seem to be much use any more

Is he left-handed?

My DD is in reception and is left-handed. She more often than not writes her name as a complete mirror image. She also writes numbers the wrong way round.

Her teacher said that this is common with left-handed children, and that they see children up to year 3 or 4 who do the same.

No, not left handed, although both his grandparents on one side are and we thought for a while he might be

DD aged 7 and left-handed, still does this occasionally.

DD is 6. Her maths and reading is good and she is towards the top of the class, but her writing is dreadful. Partly as some letters are backwards and partly because she spells phonetically (sp!) so words are often written how she hears them, even when she can easily read the word if it was in a book ifswim.

I think they are little yet, and these things come with practice and time.

This normal, some of my year4 children did it sometimes.

pantaloons - yes, thats DH's opinion too. I feel much better now I know its normal, thanks

DD is 6 and writes a lot of letter and numbers back to front - she's also working at the top of the ability range according to last year's report, so I assume it's not unusual or a problem. Interesting to know whether left-handedness is a factor - she is right-handed, but took a long time to make up her mind, plus FiL is a 'corrected' left-hander, BiL is also left-handed.

I did this myself as a child, for quite a while in Reception (and still have the exercise books to prove it!). As others have said, I don't think I realised I was doing it. I'm also left-handed. I don't think any intervention was required to set me straight. It certainly didn't hold me back academically: I was moved up a year in my second term of school and (without wanting to sound cocky) spent the rest of my primary school career at the top of my class. I can still do the mirror writing thing!