Left hand or right hand?!

[YackityYakYak]

DS2, in Yr 1, seemed to have developed as a left handed.

Summer born child, reluctant mark maker, quite behind in writing (speech problems, so focussed on that in Yr R). His writing is very poor, so with his spellings we practice every letter first, then practice joining them up, and then practice writing the word.

He would hold the pencil in his left hand, but use his right hand to 'guide' the pencil as he wrote. I kept asking him to only use one hand on the pencil and finally I said 'you don't need to use your right hand on the pencil unless you want to hold the pencil in it'.

And now all of a sudden he has decided he is 'right handed'. To be honest the writing doesn't look any worse or better and I'm struggling to know which way to go here. He SAYS no one has said he should use one hand over the other, I have pointed out there is no 'correct' hand, just the one he prefers to use.

I have mentioned it to the teacher and she will monitor him, but I really can't leave it, he needs to practice writing as he is so behind.

Will it matter if he keeps chopping and changing for awhile? How would this affect his progress?

No point in discouraging it - it just is . The way I think of it is that as I am right eyed dominant, hook handing is they way I can see what I've written.

I don't actually "break" my wrist like some do, it's just that my pen is pointing away from me (and the nib towards me, iyswim) - but it looks weird to others.

Prettier, that's really interesting. I'm left handed and I'm presuming right eye dominant (as my left eye is very "lazy" and pretty much useless to me). I adapted my writing style early on so the paper lies landscape, rather than portrait, and I write up the page instead of across it. This means I've never developed the "hook handed" position I've seen other left handers using.

Ds is left handed too, and although he's always had a strong preference for his left hand, he has only just developed an interest in writing, drawing and colouring (he's 4 now). It will be interesting to see how he adapts as his confidence with writing grows.

Sorry, that was to prettybird, autocorrect decided you should be called prettier instead!

Pourquoi - that's the way my mum (also right eyed) used to write.

Dh, a left eyed, left hander, holds his pen albeit in his left hand and paper "normally"

Rather than seeing being left handed as a hindrance, look on it as a blessing: we have the advantage of naturally using more of both hemispheres of the brain than right handers . In fact, I'm sure I read somewhere that the linkages between both hemispheres are thicker/more numerous in left handers

Also, if you ever have the misfortune to injure your left hand/wrist/arm, you are not as incapacitated as when a right hander injures their right hand, as we're already more used to using our right hands for some things, living as we do in a right handed world.

Yes I agree, I can do lots of things with my right hand much better than dh can with his left hand. The only thing that completely befuddles me is a normal tin opener. I need one that sits on top of the tin, as opposed to on the side iykwim?

I'm quite glad I'm left handed considering ds is too. I feel I'm in a better position to fight his corner should any issues come up in school - I always had trouble with teachers sitting right handed class mates on my left side (which means elbows bumping all the time), or not allowing me to use a biro and insisting I use proper ink pens which is impossible without smudging, even with my specially adapted writing style.

Oh I remembered something else that I randomly struggled with - when I signed my marriage certificate they handed me a fountain pen. I didn't know they'd do this and I really struggled to sign my name with the pen because I couldn't hold it at the correct angle (and as a result my signature is a mess on the certificate).

I'm a right-handed hook hander - never knew what it was called before! I had terrible writing when forced to hold my pen 'normally' but started writing 'hooked' in J3 (Y5 in today's sytem) and my writing improved massively. I just cannot write any other way.

It would be interesting to know which is your dominant eye spiderlight :)

You can find out easily by pointing at something, eg the top corner of a room. Cover one eye and see if your finger is still pointing at the corner. Ocer the other eye and see if it has shifted. Whichever eye that you are looking with when it doesn't shift is your dominant eye (ie the one you are covering when it does shift).

Pourquoi - I'm OK with tin openers, but I have to turn it the "wrong" way iyswim. My mum and I used to either get left handed nibs for fountain pens - or had to take time "breaking one in". Even with biros, I used to get ink stains (especially at Uni when I'd be doing a lot of wrting pre-computer days ) as I'd often "blow" the nib and it would start blotching. I now write mostly in pencil and only use pens for when I have to sign things.

My DS is left handed but seems to hold his pen straight (but he's only reception so still very early stages). How do I check whether he's right or left eyed? I am right handed but have always been able to write with my left hand fairly neatly so maybe I I have some left traits too?

No idea how to check with a child. It's really just an interesting additional bit of information - more for us as adults. In children, I'd just relax and see what they do naturally.

Dh writes "normally". Main difference for him as a left hander is that he has to "push" his pen as he writes, as opposed to pull it.

Just tried that and my right eye is dominant. I have a lazy left eye though - had glasses/patches as a child and it's still more longsighted than the right.

Good lord, I've just checked and I tend towards being a right handed hooker with a left eye dominant!!

I've always had messy writing, and I know for a fact that if I had showed any tendency towards left handedness my mother would have forced the issue, as she tried to talk me into doing it with my DS (I told her there was NO WAY I would attempt to alter which hand he was using, btw)....

And here I've been thinking there are no left handers in my family, there may well have been - ME!!!!!!

This morning DS2 picked something up with his left hand, asked me if that was his right hand. When I told him that was his left hand he then moved it to his right hand and said 'I'm right handed' with a grin.

I'm starting to get the feeling he's heard someone saying something about it being better to be right handed.....

For a little while I'm going to either ignore the question or answer with 'it doesn't matter' or 'its the hand holding X' and try to distract him away from trying to reason which hand he's using and let his instinct lead him instead, and try and see what he does with his handedness....

If it's any consolation, friends have learnt that if I'm giving directions in a car, to go by what my hands show, rather than what I say as I'll often say Left when I mean Right

My two eldest dc both used both hands to write with when they started school - and they'd often swap the pencil from left to right hand or vice versa in the middle of a word. They both settled down to be left handers - although my eldest plays racket games with her right hand.

I have a feeling that they 'chose' their dominant hand sometime in Year 1.

So Yackity, are you saying your DS has special needs? This may well account for his slower development in handwriting. Some children do struggle and in fact, they do not all catch up. If they did, everyone would be going for Oxbridge! You seem to be obsessed about what the other children can do and, by the way, sending hildren to different schools to meet their needs is not divisive in a family, it is positive because it shows you have the child's interests at heart, not your own. You appear to need him to catch up to get into an independent school, like his brother. Ths may well be the best school but all this angst over getting him there is just too much!

Milly - you're really reading far too much into a mother's anxiety when she's suddenly been faced with something that's completely thrown her - temporarily.

I don't think he has 'special needs' in the understood sense of the term, I think he currently has additional needs due to circumstances out of his or my control, but that they are very temporary. However children in these situations can have permanent effects if these 'temporary' needs aren't addressed in a sensitive and caring manner. STATISTICALLY summer born children don't perform as well as other children - and it is not all due to a lack of intelligence or ability. I don't want my DS to be one of those statistics, thank you. I don't think comparing where they are to where others are is being 'obsessed' for heaven's sakes! I was asked if I thought he was behind, how on earth can I state whether he is or isn't unless I compare him to other children? Children are compared to other children for the whole of their school life, that is the reality. It is naïve to think that ignoring it will do them any good.

If I thought there was a BETTER school for DS2 to go to, then I'd send him there. There isn't. The independent school is NOT selective - the assessment is merely 'does the child fall roughly within the accepted standards for the year' and 'can this school offer this child what they need if they have any additional needs', it has an understanding of certain additional needs, it is a very supportive and nurturing environment with a class size of between 10 -16 children so children can get all the individual attention that they need, plus all the other benefits like great sports facilities, a rural environment etc.
Other independent schools in the area are far more selective and pushy, I don't want that for my DSs. The local state school is overcrowded and has just come out of special measures - due to where we live we are highly unlikely to get into any other state schools. I think DS2 has the confidence to do well at his local school unlike his older brother, but I don't think he would do AS WELL there as he would at the independent school so it would be a huge disservice to him to not send him to the independent school. We chose it specifically because it would suit BOTH of our children, as well as we could possibly predict. But yes, being an independent school they will be encouraged to achieve more than they would at the state school. The confidence it has already instilled in DS1 in a matter of weeks has been astounding. I've been tempted to send DS2 there before Yr 3 but for other reasons I have decided not to.

You make it sound as though my wanting him to do well is wrong. No parent wants their child to fall behind if with support and encouragement there is no need for them to fall behind. I want my children to do as well as they possibly can, and to be happy and enjoy school at the same time.

I just wanted to do an update here - DS2 has now settled back into writing with his left hand. It seems he was copying some of his classmates, not wanting to be different. I don't know whether something had been said or not though.

I responded to his subsequent questions re which hand was the right hand with 'that is the hand that you are writing with' (pencil was in the left hand, writing a word, at the time) or similar and he just kept writing with his left hand.

I've had a brilliant meeting with his SENCO - she's new to being a SENCO, but had been a teacher of DS1 before so I know her well.

They have a plan in place:

• he and several other children will have twice a week sessions where they focus on activities to improve the speech sounds he has difficulties with (he NEEDS them, the others could do with assistance with them so really, it's a win all round I think).
• they are going to get him to spend time with a Yr 2 left hander (there are no other left handers in his class) so he doesn't feel as though he's 'different'.
• they will come up with activities to help with fine motor skills, to help with buttoning shirts and handwriting.

The children have started spelling practice, and he's doing quite poorly at it. Interestingly, I've noticed, he hasn't really learned to distinguish between the sounds he has difficulty with (sh, th, ch, j) and can't identify which sound he hears in a word. Possibly never learned to 'tune' his ear to the differences. They hadn't realised this so are going to observe this for awhile and see what happens. I suspect the sound activities will go towards sorting this anyway.

Really pleased that they are taking it quite seriously at school, but implementing a very gentle approach to avoid putting him off the process.

Sounds like you are dealing with it really well and getting good support from the school.