Number and letter reversals: How can I help?

[CanadianAlison+3boys]

My six year old is learning to read, he's at a early grade one level (we just started grade one in January and he was behind at the end of K but he's almost exactly where he is grade wise in terms of proficiency). He's also doing grade one math (Math Mammoth 1A and MEP Year 1 with Miquon as fun added in because he loves math). He is doing well with the concepts of addition and subtraction and number lines and more than and less than. As concepts he can describe them to me in detail and give examples easily. On paper with the examples already there he is having trouble executing the ideas he knows.

 

His struggle is reversals. He reverses his two digit numbers more than half the time (closer to 75-80% if they are single two digit numbers and not in a sequence like number line or chart). He also reverses b and d when reading and moves sounds around within words fairly regularly in text that is new to him or that he is reading again but isn't fluent with.

 

I know that this can be within the range of developmental norms, I'm just wondering how I can help him. His math work today he got more than half of the questions wrong and every single one he got wrong was a reversal, if the digits were flipped the answer was correct but he consistently writes, reads, sees them flipped. He gets frustrated because he's a bit of a perfectionist sometimes and so I'd like to help him if I can.

 

Thoughts? Ideas? I'm all ears :)

[mom2bee]

Given the age of the student, I'm not even sure that this qualifies as a learning challenge. This is all very developmentally appropriate, but I understand the desire to correct and guide even young children. My suggestion for helping him is just to guide and teach in a way that he has fewer instances to be confused. I teach young children explicitly rather than implicitly. I set each lesson up so that they have little to nothing to remember that wasn't directly explained.

 

For your son in particularly...does he understand the idea of spelling? What I mean is does he know that to spell you have to make the correct sound-symbols in the correct order in order to write a word correctly? For 2-digit numbers has he made the connection that the place value is represented by the order of the numerals? Place value is the spelling of the math-world.

 

Does he fully understand and reliably remember that the numeral "10" is talking about tens AND units. Does he fully understand that the 1 is talking about groups of ten and that the 0 is there because there are 0-units? Does he understand that "01" is another way of writing "1" but we don't do it that way because it is redundant? In arithmetic we don't usually talk about or worry about a bigger quantity that ISN'T around, but we have to keep very careful track of what isn't there if it is smaller quantity.

 

10-19 should be fully understand by place-value and kids should know explicitly that each one of those quantities is a group of 10 PLUS a group of units.

I always teach and remind kids that the biggest value comes first when we are writing numerals, just as they do when we say them.

We say 912 as 9-HUNDRED-TWELVE. But this is of course after I've made sure that kids understand that 12 means 1-ten, 2-units as I mentioned above.

 

If a child is really just struggling writing the numeral/symbol correctly, then I introduce them to the base-10 blocks and then let them draw boxes, bars and bits to represent 2 and 3 digit numbers for a while and we ALWAYS START with the biggest.

So

97 is 9 bars (tens) and 7 bits (units)

314 is 3 boxes (hundreds), 1 bar (ten) and 3 bits (units)

After drawing the number in boxes, bars and bits, then we write the numeral and again the BIGGEST goes first and after a few days of doing that, they usually get over that hurdle of how to order the single-digit numerals in a larger number.

 

For a young kid, I might still do 2 multi-digit problems at the start of each page and let them do boxes, bars and bits and then write the number, just to get it into long term memory and understanding.

 

 

For letter formation instructions there are little poems and rhymes you teach kids and have them practice while they are learning to write until it is automatic, you can find them online. I used to use those, but what I like even better to prevent reversals of letters, are the instructions on letter and numeral formation that are given in WRTR (Writing Road to Reading by Ramona Spalding.)

 

I teach the visualization of the clock face and the upper, middle and bottom lines quite explicitly for children who are beginning to write. When I have the chance to teach a child from beginning to end, then visualizing the clock-face, the guide lines and of course understanding right/left/top/bottom directions on a page is ALL that I teach and I never have any trouble with it when the kids learn that way.

[CanadianAlison+3boys]

Thank you so much! This is great advice. I will back up and really spend more time solidifying place value (he did spend time on it but I think more practice will be good). I need to get base ten blocks. I have C rods but I can see the benefit of the base ten.

 

For the WRTR suggestion, I have access to the 5th and 6th edition at the library. Will either of them work? I think I read here the editions have a lot of differences.

[kbutton]

I agree with mom2bee--place value is exactly what helped my son (who still has some reversals at 7.5!), but I would add that it might be useful to count the 11-19 as one-tee-one, one-tee-two, etc. MUS suggests that since the teens are so inconsistent with the rest of the number system in how we say them. -ty means ten, so that is why you say -ty/"tee." It really helped my see the place value, and he eventually mapped those thoughts onto the words eleven, twelve, thirteen, and so on. (We used MUS Primer and then moved into Miquon.)

 

For both place value and letters, I would also make a chart or cue card that he can pull out when writing numbers, just as a reference, once you are sure he understands the place value. For quite some time, my son would remember that he couldn't remember which place value was which when writing, though he totally understood it. If he struggles with reversals, he'll likely need diagrams going forward to remember numerator and denominator in fractions too. At least mine has. 

 

At some point, it might help him to have number cards or tiles like these to make the numbers: http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/047347 You could make them as well. If you don't know what these look like, the longer numbers, such as 1000 are longer strips, and you place shorter strips for 100, 10, 1, etc. on top of them or below them to show that 1,111 is really 1000+100+10+1, and that if you have nothing in a particular place, you must put a zero there as a place value holder.

 

We let my son refer to a chart for his letters as needed also. He writes in cursive (we have successfully used that for reversals, but it doesn't work for everyone), but he still has trouble remembering which way the capital E goes vs. the number 3. The chart helps. 

 

 

 

[geodob]

Hi CanadianAlison,

 

The crucial thing, is that his answers were correct when flipped.

So that this needs to be understood as a visual issue?

The answer is correct, but he is seeing it differently from you?

In reverse.

Though I've been involved in research into this 'reserval difficulty' with an international team, for about 6 years.

Which basically comes down to the developmental process of vision?

When light passes through the lens of eyes, which is curved lens?

The image that appears on the back of our eyes?

Is upside down, and reversed from left to right.

Which is how a baby first sees the world.

But within a few months, a baby develops the ability to correct this image and see the world around it correctly.

 

But their is a later developmental process for 'Symbols', such as letters and numbers.

Where their is no logic for the way that Symbols appear.

We just need to learn how to flip them.

Which for some children, doesn't automatically develop?

So that perhaps you could consider that when you look at his answer?

That he is seeing it flipped the opposite way.

To write it your way, would look reversed to him?

 

So for him to write it your way, would look flipped?

 

But a most important side of this research?

Is that we have identified that if we encourage children to write numbers/ letters in the flipped way that they see them?

After about 4 to 6 weeks of doing it this way?

A developmental switch occurs one day, and they can suddenly see numbers/letters the 'normal way'.

 

But the crucial thing, is to recognize their current way of seeing numbers/letters, and allow them to write the way that they are seeing.

So that the ability to flip them can naturally occur.

[mom2bee]

Thank you so much! This is great advice. I will back up and really spend more time solidifying place value (he did spend time on it but I think more practice will be good). I need to get base ten blocks. I have C rods but I can see the benefit of the base ten.

 

For the WRTR suggestion, I have access to the 5th and 6th edition at the library. Will either of them work? I think I read here the editions have a lot of differences.

I have the 5th edition and thats where I get the letter formation/handwriting from. I can't imagine that it would be any different in the earlier editions.

 

5th edition page 16 starting from "Overview for Teaching the Sounds and Formation of Letters"  to page 32. ending at "Cursive Handwriting Rules" you can read more, but those are at the pages where you learn explicitly to teach kids to visualize and write according to Spaldings instructions.

[ElizabethB]

HWT with the little smily face in the start corner of the chalkboard was very helpful for my children, they had directionality issues before using it.

[Heathermomster]

Ditto what ElizabethB stated.  B and D reversals stopped with cursive.  With DD, I used MUS blocks (red, blue, and green) and we rolled a dice and practiced making numbers for the hundreds, tens, and units place.