Dear Ruth,

My five year old son writes his name Michael backwards. He is left-handed. Sometimes he writes it correctly, but other times you could hold it in a mirror and read it. I did the advanced directional training with him from your web site. He did the first one with the arrows correctly, but on the next two lines he circled all of the letters. He got the last line, the 'd' ones, correct. Is this something I need to be concerned about? My husband doesn’t seem to think so.

T.C.

Dear T.C.,

Many children are able to do mirror writing. For left-handed people, it can be easier to do because you get to sort of drag the pencil--like right-handers do--instead of pushing it. Also, your hand doesn’t cover your work as you go along.

Since Michael discerned the letters correctly on the last line of the Directional Training exercise, he may be catching on already. If you want to give him more practice, you could begin with the first directional training page from this web site (the elephant, etc.). You can also practice with identical objects such as three or four cups (or chairs, or anything that can be turned left v.s. right). For example, you can have him help you line up the cups so that they all face the same way. Help him to point with his finger to indicate which way the handles go. Then have him close his eyes, and change one so that it points the other way. Can he guess which one was moved? Make a game out of it. Later you can play games with letters.

If you write the letters on paper, I would have him point rather than circle. That way you can use the same papers again. Give feedback right after his choice: “Yup. Uh-huh. Right. Good.” When he misses one, say “Look again . . . “ (as in ‘No big deal.’) You might start counting the number correct in a row: That’s one! Two! Three--good going. Four! Oops, look again. Four in a row--all right!”

If Michael is practicing his name sometimes correctly and sometimes backward, both ways might start to look correct to him. If you want to help him practice consistently, you might consider the suggestions in the Learning to Write Forward page of this web site.

Best Wishes,
Ruth Alice Jurey, M.S., C.C.C.
Speech/Language Pathologist