Reversals what is normal?

[MistyMountain]

I know they say reversals are common in young children but how common is it to occur frequently with lots of instruction on letter formation? I have been helping ds6 with formation ever since he been capable of writing letters earlier this summer. He goes to a school where they work on letter formation and I correct all of his reversals he makes at school at home. He still reverses more often then not with b and d and w and m. He gets the concept of place value and that the tens come before the ones place but he sometimes writes his numbers in reverse order like 01 for ten and 41 for 14 and some of the numbers themselves are backwards. He has trouble telling them apart in reading too and I have been telling him tricks since the beginning.

[wapiti]

I think that is common for 6 y.o.

[Coco_Clark]

Reversals are completely normal, and to be expected until age 7 or 8.  This coming from having two DS that constantly, constantly reverse.  Being dyslexic myself (and therefor VERY aware of what the signs of dyslexia are).  And having a degree in childhood development and a few years experience teaching.

 

Every kid confuses b, d, and p and every mom temporarily freaks out about it.  :)

 

 

[bethben]

My 7 year old still does b and d reversal.  I finally figured out how to get her to catch the difference.  A b is really a big "B" with the top erased.  She is finally getting it right more often than not.

 

[serendipitous journey]

Reversals are very normal until 8yo or so.  It's actually due to a strength of the visual system -- the ability to recognize the same object from nearly any perspective or view.  Like the mug in my avatar -- if I rotated it 180 degrees so that the handle was on the right, probably nobody would even notice.  It takes a LOT of training to teach children that while the rest of their world is the same viewed from either side, if you get "behind" a d it becomes a whole other letter -- a "b"!!!  ;)  I think boys tend to reverse later than girls, too ...

[blue daisy]

Totally normal at age 6.  Serendipitous journey described it really well (post above mine).

[Hannahs4]

Thanks for asking this question.

 

I hope it is okay for me to ask a question here. My son is 8, and only just stopped letter reversals. He Still reverses numbers a lot (not the place value), like 5, 2, 3, and 6.... Is this still normal? He doesn't match a dyslexic symptom list, but at what point do you become concerned?

[RootAnn]

I had one that still reversed some letters and numbers until almost 10. She is an extreme example as she could write an entire word in cursive backwards without realizing it.

I taught her cursive instead of print - thinking I wouldn't have to worry about letter reversals that way.  :lol:

Hannah - I wouldn't be concerned yet, but if you gently correct, it should fade away to just an occasional glitch soon. 

For us, with numbers, it was asking them to look over the problem to see if everything looked right. Even my extreme example child soon became attuned to looking for her own reversals and corrected them on her own.

[Hannahs4]

Thank you so much for the assurance Rootann! Wow that is impressive that your dd could reverse even cursive! I will try having him check his work more often instead of just making him fix them after I point them out.

[Rachel]

My nearly 7 year old has just stopped reversing letters but he struggles with numbers.

 

I have found keeping a number line handy helps. I usually remind him to look for an example as he is about to write one of the numbers he frequently reverses. He is getting to the point that he will look before he writes certain numbers, but not every time.

[MotherOfBoys]

I would like to add that I second guessed my son's understanding of place value because of his dyslexic tendencies. 32 is totally different than 23 and he understood that. He just couldn't say it correctly. So frustrating at first.