Teaching young left handed writers?

[T'smom]

I have a 3 yo dd so surprised the heck out of me the other day when she wrote her name. I had not taught her to write anything besides a capital A. I had no idea she could form the other letters. A couple questions..... First of all, I had NO intention of starting handwriting yet. BUT she learned this from just looking at an example, so she is not forming the letters correctly- should I work with her on this so she does not learn bad habits? She's become a bit obsessed and is writing her name on everything. Also, for a lefty, when they make the letters T and A do they make the cross them from left to right like right handers? She's crossing from right to left and I have no idea if that's something that should be corrected or not. A couple of times, she has written it backwards. I assume that's just a little kid thing that will correct itself, since she doesn't do it all the time (or even most of the time).

Any other advice for a right handed mom who doesn't want to mess up her left handed dd?

[Ellie]

Lefties will write their letters in exactly the same direction as righties. The only difference will be in the direction which (eventually) she will slant her paper--the opposite way that righties do. And now is the time to help her learn to hold her pen/pencil/writing implement correctly.

 

Yes, you can teach her now that we write horizontal lines in the direction that we read and write, we write circles beginning at 2 on the clock, around to 3, down to 6, up to 9, and back to 12, and we write horizontal lines starting at the top of the space.

[Stingyhag]

I am a lefty, so I had to test myself to see how I cross my T and A.  I do it from right to left.  Other than that, and of course my slant, I write just like a right handed person.  Nothing special for teaching a left handed child, other than avoiding having them sit on the right hand side of a righty.

[redsquirrel]

you might want to consider looking at the preschool program for Handwriting Without Tears. It is very 'lefty' friendly. That is what I used with my eldest, a lefty, and it was great.

 

I did teach him to use a computer with the mouse on the right, not left. In fact, he uses his right hand for lots of things, just not writing or drawing or throwing.

[serendipitous journey]

While I (a lefty) generally agree that you don't have to fret much about it, it is the case that written English is suited better for right-handed persons, being written from left to right.  There is a "hooked" manner of holding the pen/pencil that is often seen in lefties but is inefficient and it would be best if you could teach your little one to hold her paper & writing instrument "properly" so that she can write continuously and easily without smearing her ink or holding her hand in a way more likely to cause cramping.  This website addresses the issue and shows a sensible paper positioning. 

 

I second Ellie RE letter formation, which for long-term speed of writing is ideally taught left-to-right for horizontal strokes.  The clock-based way of teaching where to start and stop letters is super I think -- entirely a separate issue from handedness -- and you can Google to find more about it, or it's also in the Writing Road to Reading method materials. 

 

-- we haven't used HWT here, but I wanted to toss out that in addition to being left-friendly, it's often recommended for children starting very young, so it may be a doubly good fit for you. 

[SereneHome]

My oldest is a lefty and was the first kid I ever taught how to write.  I bought HWOT orange book and he did really well with it.  Yes, there were/are times when he would cross T right to left, but I correct him

 

BTW, his younger brother is trying to write, so I bought him his own orange book too.  Oh and I am bit too strict about it - I am not letting him write any letters until he learns to do it the right way.

 

I think it's much easier to teach than to re-teach.  And since I am lazy, I want to do what's easier :)

[Barb_]

I'm a lefty, as are three of my kids.  We all cross from right to left.  I remember when I was in kindergarten, my teachers insisted I draw lines and cross letters from left to right. Since the natural inclination is to pull the pencil across the paper rather than push it, left-handers usually find it more comfortable to pull the line from the opposite direction of right handed writers.  Trying to push my pencil across the paper frustrated me to no end as a five year old, so this isn't a hill I would die on.  I'm 45 and cross from right to left and draw my circles by pulling the pen in a counter-clockwise direction.  Apparently I reverted to whatever made me comfortable as soon as my kindergarten teachers turned their backs.  :tongue_smilie:

[sbgrace]

My left handed son and husband both cross right to left. Don't correct that.

I'd be so reluctant to do something formal with a 3 year old! But that very well may be because my boys weren't ready or interested at 3. Given she is, I do like Handwriting Without Tears. It's worked well for both my left handed and right handed child.

[T'smom]

Thanks! I will look into HWT. Believe me, I had no plans to do anything formal with her, but at an art class the other day, they said "put your name on the back of your paper", she flipped it over and I said "oh, can I write your name, honey?" She told me emphatically that she could do it and she did! I was flabbergasted. But I don't want her to develop bad habits, so I guess some lessons are in order. She's always begging to do school anyway!

[Eagle]

Triangular shaped pencils work well for learning proper grip for a lefty. We bought short Lyra pencil crayons when ds was three and they helped enormously.

[Dolphin]

I am a right handed mom with a left handed dd. I also agree, look at Handwriting without tears. One big thing is the letter placement in workbooks. The correct letter is normally on the left side of the page so a right handed child can look at it as they are writing. In HWT the examples are everywhere. Left right and above. It has a section in the teacher book about pencil grip, paper angling, all sorts. Seeing as I knew nothing, we are doing really well as dd is in her third HWT book. 

 

They have so many fun pre k activities. My daughter loves Mat Man and the flip crayons. Also she plays the CD all the time. As she is interested so early, there are a lot of fun multi sensory things you can do with HWT. Have fun.

[Barb_]

Triangular shaped pencils work well for learning proper grip for a lefty. We bought short Lyra pencil crayons when ds was three and they helped enormously.

We've also had good luck with these. Dixon tri-writes can be found on amazon. They also have tri write beginners that are fat...we liked these even better, but be sure you have a proper fat-pencil sharpener on hand.

[justamouse]

Get a Pelikan Pelikano Junior Lefty fountain pen. They are MUCH easier to use, they don't have to 'push' the pen or pencil (something that righties take for granted) and so it won't cause wrist fatigue. Also, use legal pads and a clip board, that way, they aren't writing over the giant clasps or wire binding. Then you can put the paper in the binder.


Recently I have been totally charmed by French Graphsime books which help iwht penmanship and the writing is beautiful. 

We also use Clarifontaine French seyes notebooks to help with handwriting and copy work. You can find great prices for the *notebooks* on Goulet Pen Company. 

The way the pages are lines, it *really* helps with proper formation of the letters. 

OR, if you don't wan to use that, use a graph paper (again legally bound).
 

[Butter]

Because I had never paid attention, I just asked my left-handed 7-year-old to write some A's and T's for me.  He crosses his T's (upper and lower case) left to right, but he crosses his capital A's right to left.  Honestly, I'm not worried about it as long as his handwriting is legible and he has typical speed in writing.  I don't necessarily form all my letters "correctly" and different writing styles have you form them differently anyway.  Since I'm teaching one kid to write right now, I've been paying attention to how I form letters and I've noticed that I make my d's one of two different ways (totally randomly) and sometimes I dot my i's and j's and cross my t's before I write the rest of the letter.  It works for me.  My right-handed 14 year old daughter makes o's upside-down and backwards (but my lefty forms them just like I do!).

[Cheryl in CA]

If you have a child who has a really bad grip (like my lefty) these are awesome pencil grips and can be used by both left and right handed.  I've seen them in Lakeshore Learning but they are cheaper on Amazon if you know what size you need.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Writing-Pencils-Utensils-TPG-21206/dp/B003BNBWYG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392997830&sr=8-1&keywords=the+claw+pencil+grip

 

We make sure that our lefty uses the computer left handed because cross dominance can cause some kids issues.

[sarahinwa]

Both my spawnlets are lefties.  I found a very useful, basic book called "Your Left-handed Child: Making Things Easy for Left-handers in a Right-handed World" by Lauren Millsom.  For us, the most important change we made was purchasing left-handed scissors for our (then) five year old.  

[Kathryn]

Don't try to correct her horizontal lines! Right to left is perfectly appropriate for us lefties. We have enough troubles in your right-handed world without being nitpicked to death about which way Ts and As are crossed!

[T'smom]

Don't try to correct her horizontal lines! Right to left is perfectly appropriate for us lefties. We have enough troubles in your right-handed world without being nitpicked to death about which way Ts and As are crossed!

Ok! I promise I won't!! LOL. That was my initial impulse, but I just wanted to make sure, because this is something I've never dealt with before.

 

ETA: in response to a couple other posts, she has no problem with fatigue or grip. She can color for hours and her hand positioning is perfect, although I've never done anything to show her, I guess she just imitates well. She also is very proficient with using scissors....and she uses both hands equally well. Her absolute favorite thing to do is color things, cut them out, and glue them to other things. I can't keep up with her demand for more cut and paste activities!