writing backwards and reading backwards.

[Laura0806]

I have recently noticed that my dd (5) who I suspect has ADD often writes backwards so she will write the work kcab (back) and her own name eive (evie),. Tonight she was struggling to read and inverted the book and read it better. She is left handed but I wonder if anyone had experienced this and had any ideas of why?

I don't know anything about ADD. writing from left to right is cultural rather than innate. Most (if not all) children will get some letters back to front a lot at that age. Whole words is less common but not that unusual, I don't think. The whole right/left things isn't fixed in a child's brain as it is in an adult. It'll come.

DD does this too, although she is only just starting to read at 4. I think it's fairly common for left handed children to do this.

It's very common in left-handers. Also both of my right-handers have independently done it aged 4-5 when writing speech bubbles to the left of the character speaking - to them, if that's the way the speech bubble is projecting then the speech is moving right-to-left as it comes out of the character's mouth, which sort of makes sense when you think about it. DD1 (5) sometimes does it at other times too, although I think increasingly she's aware that she shouldn't be doing it that way.

Normal at this age in both left and right handers. All of mine have done it to one degree or another.

Presumably she's going up to Y1 in Sep? She should show a lot of improvement this coming year. Personally I wouldn't worry about it unless there is no improvement by, say, summer term of Y1.

Encourage her to have the paper at 90deg to 'normal', ie across her body with top to the right. It seems weird, but helps lefties to write.

Writing backwards may not be uncommon - but inverting a book to read it better? That is surely very uncommon.

The only time I've heard of a child being able to read a book better when it was the wrong way up was a child who had inner ear problems which caused dyslexic symptoms.

Does your DD get travel sick? Lose her balance? Had lots of ear infections? Like to spin round?

I am left handed and wrote backwards at 5yrs. I can't remember with the reading, but right to left would be the natural way. However we have to learn to cope in a right handed world and so you adapt.

5 is still very young. (We seem to be in an awful rush to get our dc reading and writing in this country. In many countries they don't begin any formal learning until 6 or even 7.) Again, my youngest often rotated the book in YR and was still doing it at the beginning of Y1, but by the end of Y1 had long since stopped. He used also to cover one eye while he read "to stop the letters jumping about" - that really worried me! But I think he just wasn't as literacy-ready
as his sibs had been at that age.

There is such a huge change in the children's reading and writing skills over the course of Y1 that I can't help wondering whether the year in which you turn 6 is the natural year in which to start learning those skills.

ILove - do the letters still jump for him? It's nothing to be worried about, but it is something to be addressed.

Does his eyes get sore when he reads?

My DD aged 4 writes her name backwards, she hasn't really started to read at all yet so I don't know about reading backwards. She mainly uses her right hand so I assume she'll be right handed. I assumed writing backwards and getting letters back to front was just a normal part of learning to write.

I'm left handed and I can write backwards, like a mirror image (although normally I write forwards!)

Thank you all, sounds like its just a left handed thing, I will cease to worry!

Phoenix he hasn't said so in ages, and his reading has really taken off recently, so I'm not worried any more.

ILove - letters jumping around is a classic Irlen Syndrome symptom, my daughter wears coloured glasses for this. Children can learn to control their eyes and as they grow up often it self corrects to some degree but it can make working much more effort for them and tiring. Other things my daughter has are problems with the contrast on the white board, problems with fluorescent lighting, finds it much easier to read and write neatly with her coloured glasses on or on a coloured background. Some people class it as part of dyslexia, some call it eye stress, some call it irlen syndrome but it is worth monitoring/checking if he still has any problems. It may reappear as work gets more intensive/font gets smaller etc

sorry OP - no help on the reading and writing backwards but I have heard people mention left handers do it a lot so I expect it will correct in time.

Periwinkle - letters jumping round, difficulties with contrast etc are all also symptoms of convergence insufficiency.

Many children are treated for Irlen Syndrome, and given coloured glasses or overlays, when treatment for CI would be more effective.

true it can indicate convergence problems although I thought these were always checked by a normal optician, ours certainly did when we mentioned my daughter's problems to him and on discovering no problems he then agreed we should go to the vision therapy place near us to try coloured stuff. To be fair though we didn't realise the letters moved around really, it was more her complaints about the white board hurting her eyes that made us look into everything, she could already read well but then when we started investigating we discovered she couldn't see all the letters in the right order all the time.

I've never seen an optician test for convergence properly. They do a quick test which tests if you can converge your eyes, but that is not how you dx convergence insufficiency because it's very possible that you can converge your eyes but not be able to sustain convergence. That would give you all the symptoms you describe.

Equally I've never seen anyone test for Irlens. At the 3 clinics I've been to all they did was test out different colours to see if they helped or not. Ie they're diagnosing irlens based on the fact that coloured overlays help. When coloured overlays help lots of conditions.

My son also 5 and left handed reads and writes backwards. Some of his letters are formed backwards too. I am left handed and remember mirror writing at that age. It is really normal and apparently self corrects by the time they are 6 or 7. I am not overly worried but have been doing five minutes or so every other day on letter formation just because I don't want him to fall behind at school.

Apparently Leonardo de Vinci wrote from right to left in true mirror writing all his life, so perhaps it's a sign of genius!

I'm going with the whole genius thing :D

My DD wrote whole sentences backwards at 5 and even 6. At 7 she still writes odd words backwards and sometimes reads words backwards but she seems to be growing out of it:) She is very 'right brained' from all the reading I've been doing, so also a bit ADD.