Help with letter reversals

[bnbacademy]

My 6yo ds reverses letters when he writes... has a few favorites, then occasionally throws in more, maybe just for fun? :confused:

 

I need your help in how to ease him out of this pattern.

 

Do I ask him to erase each reversed letter and rewrite it? My logic for that is the fear that the more frequently he writes it incorrectly, it may get imbedded and thus, more of a hurdle to overcome.

 

Of course, he doesn't like to write, so frequent erasing is counterproductive.

 

Or... do I just keep a pleasant attitude and hope this goes away... it happens everyday, some days more.

 

We completed HWOT 1 and he did fine, started reversing after the printing book was completed.

 

He consistently reverses c + p.

 

Does anyone have insight to pass along?

[Unicorn.]

He's 6. I wouldn't worry too much yet. It's pretty common for kids that age to still be reversing letters. My dd was still messing up "p" a year ago at age 9. She's finally past that! I usually just pointed it out to her in a fun and silly attitude, and she would correct it herself. I would have your son correct it to help him remember the right way. hth

[ElizabethB]

HWT is good, it helped my daughter with her number reversals, she never had any problems with her letters, but had trouble with 6 and 9, and sometimes 7 (she still occasionally does, but not often anymore.)

 

(The little chalkboard with the dot in the corner was the helpful part, make sure you get that if you decide to go with HWT!)

Edited March 19, 2009 by ElizabethB

[Wee Pip]

My 8yo dd reversed letters & numbers *horribly* (shudder) at that age. Frequent reversals included:

b c d f g j p q s y z and all of her numbers, including 1 (she liked to make 1s look like type print)

 

Now she's 8 and most of the time, everything is going in the right direction. She has the occasional days where she forgets f, or a certain letter trips her up, but she asks me, corrects it and moves on. At age 6, I sort of ignored it - although I'd occasionally remind her of correct direction. My now 6yo does the same thing, though not quite as bad as her sister. I remember being concerned at the time because my 8yo was also a terrible reader (she reversed words like saw, was) and everything just came very slowly. She fit the description for dyslexia in many ways. Now the 8yo reads great! So I think she just had to outgrow it.

[Alanae]

My son still reverses some letters and he is almost 10 lol

 

What I've found is helping with him, being that he is also a - to put it mildly - reluctant writer ..

 

Have him correct his errors. Sit down with him and whatever he has written and ask him to edit it by circling any mistakes that were made be it letter reversals, capital letter errors, punctuation errors, ect .. whatever it is you are working on. Then I would pull out a sheet of paper and simlpy ask him to write the letters correctly 5 times. It's seemed to help quite a bit. My son also never learned to "write" his letters correctly during his public school education which I found made things even more difficult for him. Once I sat him down and had him go through HWT it made a difference very quickly. Simply writing the letters and forming them correctly seems to help alot. So also make sure your child is forming the letters correctly since this seems to make reversals worse.

[Carrie12345]

My dds are getting ready to turn 7 and 6. They've both had issues with letter (and number) reversals.

 

For the most part, I ignored the reversals. Both girls spend a lot of time writing for fun, and I never corrected them on their "free time" work. On "school" work, I'll correct them until I start to see them getting frustrated/upset/overwhelmed/discouraged, and then let the rest go.

 

My older dd has mostly outgrown it. She still makes a mistake once in a while, but usually catches it herself.

The younger is still struggling. She's actually a mirror writer and a lefty, so I expect it to be more difficult for her.

 

I can say that copywork has been a great exercise. Neither dd is prone to reversals when directly copying a sentence. I was a copywork hold out, but I've done a real 180 on that!

[bnbacademy]

Thank you for your helpful replies...

 

So, I mostly need to let him outgrow the habit (sigh of relief).

 

I will look into HWT supplements for Grade 1 handwriting, for more practice and instruction in writing correctly.

 

Thank you for the idea to circle the mistakes and to correct "some", not "all". I don't want to make writing any more frustrating that he thinks it is already...

[Tammyla]

Try having your ds circle his best letter/word/sentence on the page. This is a very helpful teaching tool and one that focuses on the positive vs. the negative. After working so hard on an assignment, it can be frustrating to a young student to only have their mistakes acknowledged.

 

Six is young :iagree: and reversals are common. Just keep working, but do be sure he has a good model to look at and refer to. Practice goes a long way, but don't over do it and stress him or you out. kwim?

 

:001_smile:

Edited March 19, 2009 by Tammyla

[bnbacademy]

Thank you, I am just now discovering that reversals are common. My oldest never reversed things so this is new to me.

 

I do like the suggestion to accent the positives, good reminder.

 

We use SL LA 1 for copywork with 2 sentences to copy. Some days he thinks that is Mom torturing him, and I hate to make him rewrite anything... just to avoid the frustration for him. So pointing out some words that have no reversals is a helpful suggestion.

[siloam]

I have two who were particularly bad at reversals. My 9yo did most letters and numbers. I found using multi-sensory methods helped a lot, here are the sand letter cards I made to have them trace. I also just use loose sand (cornmeal would also work).

 

I know a lot of people have tricks to also help the child remember and self check. Like bed for b and d is a bed, deb is not a bed. Then flip them down and you have P and Q with p coming first in the alphabet. I do use those when I can remember them. ;)

 

Heather

 

[Rosie_0801]

Teach him cursive, perhaps?

 

Rosie

[bnbacademy]

Yes, b and d are notoriously problematic...

 

Learning some memory tricks would be great, if any have more prompts to share?

[ElizabethB]

Yes, b and d are notoriously problematic...

 

Learning some memory tricks would be great, if any have more prompts to share?

 

So many of my remedial students have problems with reversing B and D that I now have a page on my website dedicated to this problem, along with a worksheet for practice!

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/dbdb.html

[bnbacademy]

Thank you, ElizabethB, for the practice worksheets!