Do lefties learn differently?

[MommyInTraining]

Does anyone know if left-handed people learn differently than right handed?

 

I have a son who is left-handed.

 

Thanks!

[Sputterduck]

It depends. Most do I think. I'm left handed and I certainly do.

 

People are left handed for various reasons. Some people right brained. Some people's brains are actually mirror images of normal. If the side of his brain that is dominant is the opposite of most people's then, yeah, he probably will learn differently.

 

Just watch your son and learn what is best for him. There are some really awesome websites if you google. Don't have any expectations either way. Just do what works. Oh, and don't get frustrated. My mom always did. In the end, I am far more efficient doing things my way than being forced to act like a right hander.

[MamaT]

I think it depends on the child. I have two lefties and four right-handed children. My two lefties are very different learners. I think you have to evaluate children individually for learning styles. Having said that, when I was trying to teach my second lefty to learn his letters, his older brother (the other lefty) told me I was doing it wrong and took it on himself to teach him. He taught him in no time.:001_smile:

[Catwoman]

I'll agree with, "it depends!"

 

I don't think it's necessarily a lefty issue; everyone learns differently from everyone else, to one extent or another. I think it's important to pay attention to our dc and try to respond to the signals that show us how they are best able to learn. There are many different learning styles, and once you know what works best for your kids, you can use that information to help them learn better, faster, and more efficiently.

 

OTOH, I also think it's important to teach our kids using several different methods so they are able to learn in many different ways. Let's face it, we all have one or two preferred methods of learning, but once we're out in the real world, we often don't have a choice about how we will learn certain things. (As an example, if you learn best by sitting down and reading a manual, but your new boss at work says you have to attend a lecture to learn something new, you'd better have some skills in that area, as well.)

 

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about the lefty-righty thing, and would just concentrate on figuring out what works for my individual child.

 

Cat

[gamommy]

We have one lefty and does seem to learn some skills differently. It's apparent even in her manner of speaking. She sometimes thinks about and processes things differently than the rest of us. She's very bright, with an excellent memory. Fine motor coordination and visual tracking for reading have been challenging. In all other areas she is well ahead of the game.

[wagnfun]

Does anyone know if left-handed people learn differently than right handed?

 

I have a son who is left-handed.

 

Thanks!

 

I'm with the "it depends" camp but really, of my 4 kidos, the lefty thinks soo much differently then the righties. We joke with him b/c as our girls would use the front door to enter a house, our boy would use the back- well the lefty would use a window.

He is a bright child & very much a deep thinker. He just learns very differently then the rest of us and I have had to learn that about him.

 

How old is your son? When mine was in kinder and we were learning the alphabet & to read- it just wasn't sticking. I am a list maker and a step by step person, so I taught letter by letter & tried connecting them as we went. He just wasn't getting it. He couldn't even read Bob books.

 

Through trial & error, I finally figured out how his mind was working, the boy had to know every letter, every sound & every phonics rule before his brain grasped the concept as a whole. As soon as we figured that out, he was reading chapter books in no time.

 

Now, a year & a half later, he can finish a 10 chapter chapter book in a few days.

 

His mind was the same for math, once he was introduced to complete multiplication facts and not just one number at a time, he flew through division & anything to do with fractions.

 

He approaches problems in life the same way. He has to know everything then sits on it a while, then comes up with 2-3 really good solving answers.

 

Frustrates the heck outta me all the time b/c I am a surface thinker & quick answer-er but.... he is teaching me the art of "thinking"... :tongue_smilie: His wife will have to be a patient woman who likes a man that tinkers.... ;)

 

We blame his differenceness on his leftism. (word?)

[Sputterduck]

He approaches problems in life the same way. He has to know everything then sits on it a while, then comes up with 2-3 really good solving answers.

 

 

LOL! I do that! I have to look at something as a whole from every direction before I make a decision or form an opinion. Once I do, every possibility has been thoroughly dissected. It's funny that that frustrates you, because people who don't do that and jump to conclusions without thinking first frustrate me.

[Peela]

I know that I have a strong preference for whole to parts learning (I am a lefty). I need to see the bigger picture before I am motivated to work on the details. (Actually, I don't like details much, lol. )

But I don't know if that is because I am a lefty.

Neither of my kids are lefties- one is dyslexic and one isn't.

[Wyndie]

Does anyone know if left-handed people learn differently than right handed?

 

I have a son who is left-handed.

 

Thanks!

 

My leftie learns much more differently than her rightie siblings. It took me a while to get the hang of teaching her b/c of it. The best book I ever read that helped was "Unicorns are real". That book taught me HOW to teach her. Once I rearranged how I was teaching her to accomodate her "right brain dominant" thinking, she learned how to read.

[MommyInTraining]

 

 

Hi Wyndie,

 

I saw you were in SC. Are you in Sumter? That is were we were stationed before moving to WA. I was so glad to get out of there...fire ants:tongue_smilie:!

[MommyInTraining]

How old is your son? When mine was in kinder and we were learning the alphabet & to read- it just wasn't sticking. I am a list maker and a step by step person, so I taught letter by letter & tried connecting them as we went. He just wasn't getting it. He couldn't even read Bob books.

 

Through trial & error, I finally figured out how his mind was working, the boy had to know every letter, every sound & every phonics rule before his brain grasped the concept as a whole. As soon as we figured that out, he was reading chapter books in no time.

 

 

His mind was the same for math, once he was introduced to complete multiplication facts and not just one number at a time, he flew through division & anything to do with fractions.

 

 

 

Thanks so much for sharing. This is what I have been suspecting with reading and math. He will be 8 in a few days and is just starting to finally read some on his own. The math has me concerned also. I don't really know how to approach it with him.

 

And what about handwriting? Did your son struggle with that also? I have him practice writing, but it just doesn't seem like he is making much progress.

 

It is interesting, when he uses the computer I don't switch the mouse to be used for a leftie and he seems to do fine using his right hand for that. But, he eats and writes with his left hand.

 

He has never really liked to do puzzles, but he does an amazing job putting train track configurations together without looking at diagrams or putting a toy together without having to look at the directions.

 

Would love to hear more book recommendations for learning about how his brain works!

 

Thank you!

[Wyndie]

Hi Wyndie,

 

I saw you were in SC. Are you in Sumter? That is were we were stationed before moving to WA. I was so glad to get out of there...fire ants:tongue_smilie:!

 

 

 

Hi Terri,

 

I'm at Charleston AFB actually. Fire ants haven't been too bad here although we're moving off base in a few months so I may have a different opinion then. ;)

[Sputterduck]

Handwritting... that's something you need to be careful with. You cannot expect him to write like a right handed person.

 

Here is a decent site on that and other left handed issues. http://handedness.org/action/leftwrite.html

 

I use hooked writing because no one taught me anything better and that's usually how lefties learn to cope writing from left to right. I have to say I loved learning Hebrew because you write from right to left. :)

[Amber in AUS]

What a great thread!! I had a couple of light bulb moments when reading it especially about the whole to parts learning. My DD is a lefty too.

[plansrme]

My leftie is extremely left-side dominant, not just left-hand dominant. She is a swimmer, and when she learned butterfly, she would just drag her right arm through the water instead of getting it out above the water. She would still win, and we would tell her, "Just think how fast you'd be if you used both arms." She finally managed it, but months later we realized she was moving her right leg improperly on the breaststroke. She ended up with breaststroker's knee in her right knee and had to sit out of swimming for a couple of weeks, all because she didn't pull that right knee in correctly.

 

I suppose the point of this is that if you have a leftie in a sport that requires equal use of both sides of her body, have a coach pay attention to her right side!

 

Terri

[Irene Lynn]

Does anyone know if left-handed people learn differently than right handed?

 

I have a son who is left-handed.

 

Thanks!

 

I can't tell a difference in our house. My dh and I are both right handed and our dd is left handed. She learns a lot like I do, which is the way people have been describing their lefty's method, learn the whole concept, then learn the details. To me it is like building the closet and installing the clothes rod (get the whole concept in place), before giving me all the clothes (the details) to hold with no place to hang them. My driving question in life is WHY. If I know why, then I can proceed much more quickly. If you just show me how, then I may or may not figure out why. Knowing WHY is essential for my best cooperation and participation. My dd is very much this way with a few characteristics that are more like my dh. She is a perfectionist and doesn't feel confident to proceed unless the material is mastered. Neither she nor I are very hands-on in our learning. She is a little more auditory than dh or I. Actually, dh is very sequential and dd has a little bit of that, too, at least more than I have.

 

My dh and I learn entirely differently, so our children seem to have a mix of our learning methods with one learning a little more like I do and one learning a little more like dh does.