Left handed 5yo - what to expect from school

[PyjamaFiend]

Just that really. My DS2 is 5 and in year 1. He is very definitely left handed and always has been. His writing is coming on and is legible but is clearly weaker than his contemporaries.

The biggest issue is with spelling tests, we religiously learn his spellings each week. I know he can spell the words (we learn them on squeebles and then tackle the writing later), but he often scores pretty low marks on his test. It’s getting to the point where his confidence is crushed. He has just cried his little heart out over his writing and I’m at a bit of a loss.

School are being pretty inflexible and I know that they will be wanting his writing to improve, but it seems reasonable to adjust their methods when it comes to him proving that he can spell. There really is such a massive difference between his writing ability and his knowledge and understanding.

I guess part of me wonders if this will eventually show as dyslexia, but I also guess the mechanics of writing might make it entirely normal for a child who is left handed to take much longer to get the hang of good pencil control and letter formation.

My biggest worry is that neither of his class teachers seem to have any strategies to help. Surely being left handed is not that unusual!

If he was in my class I would be looking for left handed pencils and have had successes with these www.stabilo.com/uk/products/learn-to-write/graphite-pencils/stabilo-easygraph/
There are also workbooks for left handers to work through if you wanted to do some at home. Sometimes a writing slope can help too. There are many different pencil grips but in my experience I would focus on not using one if possible. Hopefully they have left handed scissors readily available?
Is there a member of staff at the school who is left handed to demo ways of writing to him?
This adjustments should be done alongside developing his whole arm muscles through something like Write Dance (there are similar interventions) but also activities that work these muscles whilst he is with you.
When it comes to the spellings I would come to an agreement with the class teacher about focussing on a handful of them so that he can achieve and build up his confidence.

2 of my boys are lefties which is strange as no one else in the family is..
Cursive writing helped improve things along with lots of practice at home where I just for them to write for the sake of writing and ignored spellings abs punctuation. I called out shopping list to them. Recipes etc and tried to make it seem that they were helping me instead of practicing their writing.. my 9 year old is still not amazing but legible enough for though. honestly those this is not one the school to do
Anything differently though. .

Maybe suggest they test his spelling by him typing, or using letter counters/magnetic letters etc

My daughter is left handed and dyslexic I'm not going to lie it's a struggle. She was diagnosed in year 2 after that steps were put in place with school and we have a private tutor. Her handwriting now in year 5 is beautiful it's just taken a bit longer to get there

@PyjamaFiend

Just that really. My DS2 is 5 and in year 1. He is very definitely left handed and always has been. His writing is coming on and is legible but is clearly weaker than his contemporaries.

The biggest issue is with spelling tests, we religiously learn his spellings each week. I know he can spell the words (we learn them on squeebles and then tackle the writing later), but he often scores pretty low marks on his test. It’s getting to the point where his confidence is crushed. He has just cried his little heart out over his writing and I’m at a bit of a loss.

School are being pretty inflexible and I know that they will be wanting his writing to improve, but it seems reasonable to adjust their methods when it comes to him proving that he can spell. There really is such a massive difference between his writing ability and his knowledge and understanding.

I guess part of me wonders if this will eventually show as dyslexia, but I also guess the mechanics of writing might make it entirely normal for a child who is left handed to take much longer to get the hang of good pencil control and letter formation.

My biggest worry is that neither of his class teachers seem to have any strategies to help. Surely being left handed is not that unusual!

I wouldn’t worry too much...he will write less and less as the years go by....by the time he is an adult he will sign his name and that will be it.....it’s all keyboards. I’m left handed....I have nice handwriting ( so I’ve been told😁) .....my 3 children are all left handed....there handwriting is all quite immature...but it’s never held them back...they just use keyboards in their jobs...my eldest grandchild age 6 is left handed.....still getting there with her writing....don’t think she’s any better /worse Than her right handed peers

If the issue is low scores due to slow writing, I'd request extra time, a scribe - he would have to work outside the room with a TA or some one, or my personal favourite... he does as many as he can and has that score. So if he does 5 and gets 5 out of 5 he gets full marks :-) rather than say 5 out of 10 (or however many there are). I set regular vocab tests at secondary and that is what I do with my pupils who struggle. They are more motivated to learn the spellings when they know they can still achieve a good mark.

Thanks @Icantremembermyusername those are some really helpful suggestions. This is the exact issue - he can spell, he can’t communicate through the medium of writing that he can spell. So to him learning the spellings is a pointless endeavour. He will put the work in, know them, and still ‘fail’ (in his eyes).

And thanks for getting it @PathOfLeastResitance - we bought some of those pencils and gave them to school but I wonder what happened to them.

I'm not sure how much of this is due to being left handed @PyjamaFiend. He sounds like a typical 5 yo yr1 boy. Can you speak to school about his speed and him having long enough to write?

OP I have sent you a PM

Is it a left handed issue or a capability issue more generally? My 7 year old is left handed. School supported with different pencils to help with grip and scissors initially, but now she's Year 3 she uses the same pen as everyone else. She has beautiful writing and it's never been an issue. My 5 year old is right handed, knows all his phonics sounds and can read well, just struggles with writing. Poor letter formation and sentence construction. He finds it hard, doesn't like sitting to do it, is frustrated it takes him so long, is disappointed if you correct him, etc. His teacher has said it's just practise. Practise, practise and more practise to build his confidence up. And help him feel proud about what he can achieve. So she suggested getting him to write about one or two things he'd done at the weekend and then taking it into school and they could make a big fuss about his writing and build up his confidence. They're so young but they do really beat themselves about not getting things right, it's heartbreaking.

Good luck talking to school. None of what I’ve suggested is ground breaking and I’ve certainly done it all many times over the years and had successes. Also, none of it is hard for the teacher to accommodate and even if it is hard, tough on them. All children have needs and your son needs confidence building and (in my opinion) easy reasonable adjustments.

I'm sorry to hear the school aren't being supportive. My left hander only started to write the right way round in year 1. All through reception and at the start of yr 1 he wrote in complete mirror writing. We were very worried but his teacher said she'd seen it before and she wasn't going to make a fuss about it - she just carried a small mirror to make it easier for herself to read his work. His work went up on the classroom wall the same as everybody else's and he was never made to feel awkward about it. When he did transition to writing the right way round he was very slow so was given longer to complete tasks. It took a while and he would still intermittently get some letters and numbers back to front for a couple of years but he got there. He has some visual problems too which probably doesn't help, but he went on to develop beautiful writing eventually - it us much neater than either of his right handed siblings'. He also turned out to be quite good at art, though for a long time he wouldn't even attempt to draw anything. He liked colouring in though, which we encouraged and I'd buy more complex colouring books and give him coloured pencils rather than crayons - I think that helped with pencil control and coordination.
I know that it doesn't help with your immediate problem, but apparently this kind of thing is quite common in left handers and does usually resolve itself.

Thanks @PathOfLeastResitance, I too am thinking it’s more of a reasonable adjustment type thing. He loves school, he’s enthusiastic about learning. He’s just read (most of) green eggs and ham to me. It’s just this one issue.

And it’s a good question @PlugUgly1980 - I suspect many children will be ‘behind’ typical expectations post pandemic. But I think most of his friends can write more reliably. And it does seem to be just awkward for him.

My 7yo is left handed, and maybe dyspraxic, as he really seems to struggle with fine motor skills, he’s terrible at using a knife and fork too, and also putting on socks for example.
School have been very accommodating, as it’s obvious his ability to record his thoughts on paper do not match his abilities. He has small group intervention to help, and they also suggested that he could learn to type, or use a scribe in future if it was really holding him back and causing him to be come frustrated. Might those be options to suggest to your school?

Sorry to hear your son is struggling- that doesn’t sound nice for either of you.

I’m interested to hear that you think it is because he is left handed that he has a problem with writing- I’ve not heard that before and can’t understand any physical reason this would be? My son and I are left handed and apart from smudging, it didn’t occur to me there would be other problems connected with it.
Good luck with supporting him.

@Swimbikerunmummy that’s so interesting- eating with him is like that scene from beauty and the beast. He loves food, but is not very refined. And he struggles with socks.

I don’t know if it’s his left handedness or whether that’s a red herring, but it does seem to be significantly harder to be left handed if you already have fine motor difficulties. The world is made for right handed people.

I am left handed and never had issue with my writing and spelling, writing is neat and nice. I don't have any struggle writing because I am left handed.On the other hands, all my kids are right handed and their writing are awful, for my eldest who is 17 you need a magnifying glass to make out what he has written it is so bad. In my personal opinion based on my own experience, there is no difference to learn to write between right and left handed as long as nobody forced you to write a certain way and let you do your writing the way you want.

I'm a lefty and so is my Ds. I have messy handwriting and he also struggles with letter formation. Spelling, however, is not linked to handwriting. If he is 1/2 term into year one then phonetically plausible is what they're largely after. It's a bit early to tell if he has a spelling issue.
In terms of left handedness, angle the paper, get him some lefty scissors and don't worry about it - 10% of us have found ways of managing!

I suspect the left handedness is a red herring here.

You are describing my now y8 child when she was yr1/y2/you, I fact I think it wasn't until last year her writing became 'neat enough'. Her speed is still not up to scratch and that is causing issues now. She is however right handed.

My younger child is a leftie and whilst this handwriting took longer to develop to legible than his peers and at yr1/2 he was still writing letters backwards for example- he wrote clear enough for a teacher to read. He is now y3 and keeps up with the rest.

In terms of what to check/do ... based on my elder child.

• Try hand exercises to strengthen his hands /grip and thinks like lego, playdough, kinetic sand etc.
• insist on school checking his spelling in another form. They should not want to see him demoralised and humiliated like this on a weekly basis. If they refuse then tell them he will not do the test at all. He can still learn the spellings so he keeps up. If this is the case then you will be pushing school for many years to come sadly.
• consider getting him checked for hypermobile joints. (Dd is fully hypermobile but you would likely know by now if that was the case - v late walking, talking, very loose joints, poor balance, general clumsiness more than his age etc.) However if he has loose shoulders then his handwriting can be massively affected without it having any real impact elsewhere.
• a writing slope may help. Try proving his paper up on a board or a stiff ring binder and see if that eases things. - if it does he needs an OT assessment through your GP.
• dyspraxia is something to be considered - however he is a bit young to be screened. It is something however that you can look up and use the strategies for anyway.

Good luck!

There is meant to be a link between left handedness or ambidexterity and dyslexia.
I'm ambidextrous and there was a question whether I was dyslexic at school. I was never formally tested but it was raised a few times.

OP, it may be down to his left-handedness, or it may be simply that reproducing it in a quiet room with just you is very different to producing it in a classroom. I used to find that. Spellings at home: 10/10. Spellings at school... oh dear. I have a very strong memory in year 2 writing and knowing that you didn't spell of as "ov", but for the life of me I couldn't remember.
Dm used to give me ways to remember, and I still use them when writing today. Notice: not ice, Beautiful: Mrs B, Mrs E, Mrs A U T, Mrs I, Mrs F U L. Because: Big elephants can always understand small elephants (only I used to say "little" and spell it "becaule").

Oh and try the different pencils - the stabilo pens are good we didn't use the pencils. But also try and 2H pencil rather than a HB (which is the standard) if he does have an issue with pencil control through loose joints or otherwise he will be pressing very hard on the paper making it harder to read and much more smudgeable for a leftie. Harder pencils flow faster too somehow so it might help with the speed.

My ds is left handed and it is harder especially with pen as it smudges as he wrote.
One tip is to ask teacher he always sits on the left so he doesn’t clash elbows constantly with a right handed child next to him. That helps a little and teachers don’t always think of it

@MargaretThursday my ds uses these...
Big Elephants Catch Ants Under Small Elephants is his favourite!

I'm left handed and my handwriting has always being terrible! my son is 7 and also left handed and dyslexics his writing is not great. I don't make him do any writing at home as it is too hard for him.
I'm not really sure what school can do to help with his writing but mention to the school how upset he is. he shouldn't be noticing that his handwriting is worse than others in year one. I had similar issues with mine from year one and it is heartbreaking to see your child's confidence in themselves disappearing. .

Has he tried triangular pencils? My ds found these really helpful and still does. My ds was the other way round, the school were insisting on cursive writing but his script was much neater. I had to be really firm with the school.
I get How your son must be feeling it used to get my son really down constantly being told to write smaller and neater. He was trying his best.
I suspect my ds has dyspraxia - other fine and gross motor issues and I am currently waiting to get him assessed.