Writing 8 or HWT letter reversals

[WoolC]

My 7 yo ds reverses just about every letter and number that can be reversed. When he was 5 we did HWT K using the air tracing, chalkboard, workbook etc. He completed the printing power first grade book last year. As long as he is copying words he's fine but as soon as he attempts to write a word from memory (even his own name) the letters are reversed again.

 

I have the Diane Craft book and we began the writing 8 excercise last week but it is like pulling teeth to get him to do it. Is it worth it to power through with this as the risk of making him hate writing even more? Should I drop back to HWT K and go over letter formation again?

 

Thank you for any ideas you can share!

[sbgrace]

I don't know! I wouldn't want to push something hated at seven unless I really had to. So I might go back to HWT unless the I could somehow make the 8's fun/worth it to him. My son disliked it too, and we quit. But maybe I shouldn't have.

 

My reversal kid, also a mirror writer, did improve over time, but he was still switching problem letters and numbers occasionally much later than normal. When we switched to cursive, that took care of the problem. Now that I think of it, I haven't seen a number or print reversal in recent memory. He was still reversing when we started cursive, so time fixed it here.

 

Seven is young, so maybe cursive isn't the right thing for him now. Beyond that, seven is still young enough that reversals are still within normal as well. I'm going to add that I don't think my son has diagnosable dyslexia--but he does struggle with some typical dyslexia stuff, and I've had to use dyslexia materials for spelling. Seven is too young to be jumping to conclusions, but you are talking about a lot of persistent reversing, so I thought I'd mention it anecdotally. Something to watch for.

[OneStepAtATime]

You might consider getting a vision screening with a developmental optometrist to rule out developmental vision issues.  A child can have perfect visual acuity and still have developmental vision issues.

 

Also, on the off chance that there is also a possibility of dyslexia, how does your child do with rhyming and sound letter linkage?  How well do they read out loud?  

[Ausmumof3]

My kids still did reversals at that age especially when thinking more about content. Copy work was fine and the reversals gradually disappeared. Nothing we did to help specifically fixed it, just reminders and practise.

[WoolC]

You might consider getting a vision screening with a developmental optometrist to rule out developmental vision issues.  A child can have perfect visual acuity and still have developmental vision issues.

 

Also, on the off chance that there is also a possibility of dyslexia, how does your child do with rhyming and sound letter linkage?  How well do they read out loud?

 

He sees a developmental optometrist each year but she hasn't found any vision issues that would cause the reversals or reading troubles.

 

He's awesome with rhyming. He can decode words but reading is slow and painful for him. We're working on building fluency and confidence now. He knows most of the 75 phonograms, we're working on the last few but it took tons of repetition and constant review for those. I do suspect dyslexia but this is also my autistic son with high anxiety/selective mutism so evaluators haven't been able to give me any useful information for academics. I know we're working with slow processing and low working memory, addition facts have been almost impossible to memorize as well.

 

Since we don't have any formal labels to go on academically my approach has been to take each area we are struggling in and try to address it through specialized curriculum or a method that works for him. Just don't know if the writing 8 is worth the hassle for a kid who is having a hard time in almost every area.

[Clemsondana]

HWT continues to show letter formation, so you could go on to first grade if you wanted.

[geodob]

WoolC, perhaps you could do some tests with him?

The first, involves placing a page of text next to a mirror.

Then ask him to try and read the page that he sees in the mirror?

 

Where it would be interesting to know how he goes with this?  If in fact, he finds it quite easy?

 

Then ask him to do some writing.

But ask him, to start writing from the right side of the page. Instead of left side.

Also to write all of his letters/words in reverse.

Then look at what he wrote, in a mirror.  To see how accurate he was?

 

Where it would be interesting to know whether he is fluent, with reading and writing in reverse?

 

 

 

[WoolC]

HWT continues to show letter formation, so you could go on to first grade if you wanted.

Yes, he did the first grade book last year and did alright with it, it just doesn't stick when he's writing on his own. I talked with him about it a bit and we decided to buy a new copy of the first grade book and work through it again. I'll probably add in extra practice this time. He likes HWT better than the tedium of the writing 8 so I'll go with it.

[WoolC]

WoolC, perhaps you could do some tests with him?

The first, involves placing a page of text next to a mirror.

Then ask him to try and read the page that he sees in the mirror?

 

Where it would be interesting to know how he goes with this?  If in fact, he finds it quite easy?

 

Then ask him to do some writing.

But ask him, to start writing from the right side of the page. Instead of left side.

Also to write all of his letters/words in reverse.

Then look at what he wrote, in a mirror.  To see how accurate he was?

 

Where it would be interesting to know whether he is fluent, with reading and writing in reverse?

 

Ok, I put a page of high frequency words from our LOE phonics program up to the mirror and he read "us" as "su" in a questioning voice.  He had trouble attempting longer words in the mirror so reverse reading is not any easier for him.

 

I'm not sure if I understand what you are saying for the writing test.  I asked him to write his name from right to left so if his name were "MICHAEL" it looked like this on his paper, "LEAHCIM" He wrote in all caps, which he reverts to often, he reverses capitals and lower case with the same frequency.  Oddly enough he wrote every letter without reversals which is very rare for him.  Holding it up to the mirror it appears that the name is in the correct order but the letters are reversed because he actually wrote them correctly on his paper this time.  Did you mean for me to ask him to purposely reverse each letter as well?  If he can write well in reverse would that indicate dyslexia or something else?  Thanks!

[Ausmumof3]

Do you have Writing with Ease? Because I think the most valuable information in there for me was that kids can think about mechanics of writing or they can think about content at this age but they can't do both very effectively. Given that the errors only occur when he is working on writing on his own, I think this may be what is happening. I'd consider doing mostly copy work or dictation for longer. If you want him to work on content, I'd ask him to dictate to you while you record what he says, and then have him copy your writing. That is what worked for my son with letter reversal issues.

[kbutton]

Does he make the same strokes every time for every letter? I did have to emphasize to both my boys (who also recognized letters upside down, backwards, etc.) that they did have to memorize the patterns for making them and memorize their orientation. I emphasized that doing the same thing over and over was how their brain would remember it most easily.

 

My second one did have major issues with the number 8 and with writing in general. He has or had (we've done therapy) trouble with motor sequencing, visual stuff, retained primitive reflexes, etc. For him, it was an "everything is wrong" issue with writing. Truly. But he wanted to write nicely, and he wanted to learn cursive. Cursive helped him with reversals and with remembering because so many letters cannot be reversed (the hard part was that it was more strokes to remember). In his case, we slowed the writing process down to a crawl and let him always keep a letter chart handy (I remember a letter chart above the chalkboard pretty much all the way through grade school). I also checked his writing itself a lot to be sure he formed his letters the same way each time. 

 

We also had him close his eyes and draw individual letters on a whiteboard. He could do things just fine with his eyes closed, but not with his eyes open! If he closed his eyes, he made 8's. If he opened his eyes, he drew kidney beans. Every time. I finally put an x on the board, and he learned to trace an 8 in the proper way right on top of the x until he could do it without the x.

 

It took him about 18 months to do an 8 correctly from start to finish without that trick. Thankfully, a lot of the other letters fell into place a bit more quickly.

 

Oh, if I wanted him to write anything, I basically had to write it first and have him write on top of it for a really long time. Then, he could *sometimes* copy it if it was short. That turned out to be a visual thing, and it got better with vision therapy from a COVD. 

[KSinNS]

You don't need to go back to grade 1 HWT. The grade 2 book also shows letter formations for the lower case letters and patterns for the upper case letters. The pattern for forming the letters should help, over time, with the reversals. My 9 yo is still reversing d and b (and a few others too), but he seems to be more accurate in cursive because he does the letters with the magic c pattern rather than making it up. We shall see if that continues.

[MerryAtHope]

What does he hate about the Writing 8 exercise? (For example, it's really long to do the whole alphabet at once, and you could try shortening the practice). You could also use it to reinforce mainly the reversed letters. I think I'd try to adapt the exercise to see if it could be made more palatable. I do think it's a helpful one.

 

But also, here's a blog with ideas to work specifically on reversals.

[MistyMountain]

What does he hate about the Writing 8 exercise? (For example, it's really long to do the whole alphabet at once, and you could try shortening the practice). You could also use it to reinforce mainly the reversed letters. I think I'd try to adapt the exercise to see if it could be made more palatable. I do think it's a helpful one.

 

But also, here's a blog with ideas to work specifically on reversals.

I have been doing writing 8 but for a few letters it is not transferring yet and there is a lot of complaining too. I actually really like your idea to focus on the letters they reverse or form wrong. I thought of adding tricky numbers too. They do not do numbers but I feel like that would help too. Maybe just focusing on those for a little bit will help. Or I can do the whole alphabet some days and the tricky letters other days. I also can add some of the tactile tips like air writing and sand paper letters to it. Edited February 23, 2017 by MistyMountain