I’ve been practicing the ABCs and 123s with my son and notice that certain letters (J N P S Z) and numbers (4 6) he always writes backwards/mirror imaged. I’ve seen other kids, and even my own writings as a child, have the same quirk. Is this pretty much universal?
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A lot of kids do this. However, it can also be a sign that they are left-handed. This can be tested by encouraging a child to try to write alternatively with either hand.
I find that if I’m trying to write with my non dominant hand, I always write some of my letters backwards. It could just be that it feels more right to write them like that than the actual way they go.
For my kids, the backwards writing sometimes occurs based on where they start writing. If an S starts on the top left, the letter is backwards. If the S starts on the top right, the letter is normal.
That doesn’t explain letters like J as much, but the fact that my kids don’t start in the same place for the same letter hints that they are just arbitrarily choosing left or right. They remember the shape but not the direction.
They may have some left/right confusion. This could be a sign of a developmental delay or a learning disability. Heck, it may even be age appropriate. The brain doesn’t have a good sense of left/right until about 8 years old. So lots of young children are going to have, or not recognize, letter reversals because their brains sense of directionality prevents them from noticing it.
When I was a kid, I wrote letters reversed because I genuinely couldn’t remember which way they should go. Took me well into elementary school to finally remember which way 2, S, Z, and L go, specifically. Wasn’t an issue if I could see it on the page, though.
My daughter will write completely backwards if she’s drawing a comic and the speech bubble goes to the left on the frame. She’s six. I think it’s a question of repetition and learning what’s standard.
How old is your kid? If they’re still young it’s not a huge concern. Just bring it to their attention when you notice them writing it backwards by saying something like this:
“I noticed one of your letters is backwards. Do you see which one it is?”
If they don’t notice, you can also have an alphabet/number strip next to their writing so they can look at it quickly and notice if theirs is backwards.
You can also be more direct:
“This letter is backwards, how can you fix it?”
With repetition and time most often they will begin to correct it themselves.
Very early in life the brain learns that seeing something from the front, and seeing something from the back (mirror images) are the same thing. Think for example similar to how we learn object permanence.
When learning to write, this needs to be un-learned.
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-children-write-letters-backwards-natural-learning-process-2018-4
Children learn to read and write at an age where a person can be represented by a rough circle, an oblong, and four sticks. Or a house is drawn as a square with a triangle on top.
Look at this shape ” h ” image I tell you it’s a drawing of a chair. If I draw it mirror image is it still a chair? Why is it an “h” in one direction and “not an h” in the other? Children learning to write are at the stage in logic where they understand that the shape represents the object even if it’s upsidedown and backwards. Now tell me the difference between b and d and p and q.
It’s the same shape. It’s not intuitive for most kids that the same shape has a different meaning depending on it’s orientation.
When children are very little, they learn that objects are still the same objects even if you turn or mirror them. A teacup with a handle on the left is just as much of a teacup as one with the handle on the right – it might even be the same teacup, just rotated!
This does not work with letters, as b and d for example have a different meanings. The children have to learn to understand this first. This is something that most children learn without having it explained to them – it’s usually enough just to practice writing and look at examples of letters.
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