Reversals

[NotAsTired]

What do you think is going on, if anything, if a child is reversing nearly every letter? It was not always so. he was forming his letters correctly in reception. When he went into year one, he was forming all his letters correctly and slowly over the last few months, they have begun being reversed.

Shameless bump. Anyone?

I'm a mum, not an expert, but here are a few thoughts:

Just wondering if your DS is left-handed OP? Reversing letters and numbers happens more with left-handers. Our alphabet has evolved to suit most people and most people are right-handed. For some left-handers, it could be that the reversed letters feel more 'natural' than the correct letters and this might cause some confusion in the early stages of learning to write, and might cause a left-hander in particular to drift towards using the mirror-reversed forms.

Whether or not your child is left-handed, when your child started out he would have been copying letters directly and is now being expected to write them from memory. The latter is a more difficult task of course. Maybe your DS needs reinforcement at the easier level of the former task.

I would suggest giving your DS a copy of the alphabet, upper and lower case, to use as a guide when he is writing until the correct forms are embedded in his memory.

There are some tricks that can be used. You might have heard of using 'bed' with its headboard at one end and footboard at the other to help with remembering the correct way round for b and d.

Starting cursive writing helps with some letters too as it almost forces some letters to be written in a particular direction.