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Question about number reversals.


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My just turned 7 year old 1st grader  is consistently reversing numbers (writing them backwards), generally 2, 3, 5, and 6. She reads normally (just learned at 6), and does not reverse letters. She doesn’t seem to have any trouble reading numbers properly, or computing them. Should I be concerned? Should I just have her do copywork using numbers, or just assume it’ll work itself out eventually? 

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Agreed that is probably still pretty normal at 7yo but I would keep an eye on her and help her remember to write them correctly.

Does she have a way to remember which way they go, chants or visual cues?

Does she still write them backwards when she has a correct model to look at while she writes? If she had a number line in front of her while she did her work to refer to while she wrote her numbers, would she still write them backwards?

If the answers to all those questions is no, then I'd say she proably just needs more practice to get the look and feel of the number cemented in her head. If you've done all those things with her and provided her unlimited access to a model to copy and she still writes them backwards, then I might be worried that it was something more serious than age appropriate reversals.

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7 hours ago, Upennmama said:

My just turned 7 year old 1st grader  is consistently reversing numbers (writing them backwards), generally 2, 3, 5, and 6. She reads normally (just learned at 6), and does not reverse letters. She doesn’t seem to have any trouble reading numbers properly, or computing them. Should I be concerned? Should I just have her do copywork using numbers, or just assume it’ll work itself out eventually? 

 

I agree with others that this is normal through about 8, particularly as she is not having any trouble with basic computation.

I would ask her to correct them in the answers, and to do more whiteboard work, and that will help her internalize the correct directions.

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My dyslexic child had this issue with letters and numbers, until having vision therapy in early teens. My (non dyslexic) teen, still has an occasional issue with this, and has to make a conscious effort to write numbers the correct way around, easily mixing 5 and 2, and sometimes forgetting which way to write 4 and 9. 

I agree that it's not unusual for a child age 7, but something to keep an eye on.

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Normal, but a lot of the activities that you can use for letter reversals can also work for number reversals. I also liked how Handwriting Without Tears introduced numbers in ways to help prevent reversals. They use a chalkboard with a smiley face in the top left corner, but you can do something similar with a white board and a sticker or squares on paper. The idea is to show the student where to start the number, and having something that reminds them where to start can help to reinforce the correct directionality. Anyway, just approach it gently and work on one number at a time for awhile--she'll get there!

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22 hours ago, MerryAtHope said:

Normal, but a lot of the activities that you can use for letter reversals can also work for number reversals. I also liked how Handwriting Without Tears introduced numbers in ways to help prevent reversals. They use a chalkboard with a smiley face in the top left corner, but you can do something similar with a white board and a sticker or squares on paper. The idea is to show the student where to start the number, and having something that reminds them where to start can help to reinforce the correct directionality. Anyway, just approach it gently and work on one number at a time for awhile--she'll get there!

I really like the HWT chalkboard for that, as well.  Both of my children had a few number reversal problems but not letter reversal problems, the smily face helped a lot.  For one of them, I put all the numbers with a starting dot the top of each math page for them to refer to while they were working on it as well to keep them from writing it the wrong way during math, I forget which child, one of them reversed more numbers and did it longer than the other.  (The one with the bigger problem also tried to start writing in the wrong spot for several numbers.)

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