left-handed/ambidextrous learning

[Kaitlynsmum]

DD is now 34 months and loves looking at alphabet books with me. I've been careful not to pressure her, but she likes colouring in letters and tracing her finger over single letters in books. I've noticed that she traces the opposite way to me - bottom to top, right to left. She does lots of things with both hands but seems to prefer the left. There is a lot on the internet about lefties and reading difficulties. Is this backwards tracing an early sign of such difficulties? I've no intention of doing anything about it, not in a panic or anything, just curious.

[jayne]

now i have a lefty who is five and when she was younger she did that alot.. she started doing things the "right" way between 3 and 4 yrs old and even now somethings are backwards... i think it is all part of the learning of letters...

i remember her writing totally backwards.. now that she is learning to write numbers they are transposed and backwards.. but the more she practices the better they are getting.

[Erin M]

Despite the beliefs to the contrary there actually is no correlation between left handedness and dyslexia.  My sister and I are both left handed and were both reading before kindergarten.  The backwards tracing actually doesn't mean anything either -- it's perfectly normal for kids to transpose letter and numbers when they write up until about third grade, most kids sort it out before then.  (That's not connected to dyslexia either, though it was long thought to be one of the major "signals" of it.)  If she is left handed the one thing she'll probably have some difficulty in is writing neatly, most lefties that I know have notoriously bad handwriting, but that sorts itself out too -- and it seems to me that they're a bit better at teaching handwriting to lefties these days.  I had terrible handwriting all through elementary school, but now mine is super neat (neat enough to write on the board for a bunch of elementary school kids and have them be able to read it).  HTH!

[danlynclark]

My sister is left-handed and she has always been the biggest reader and the smartest child in my family.  So don't worry about it!
Lyn

[**Clare**]

My little boy is left handed, hes coming up to 7 and has had major problems with writing, connected or not I don't know but imo it is!He also struggled with reading but now reads really well.  Hes never really wrote his letters backwards apart from 'p,d,and b' which I think is normal, I remember doing it myself as a child!  He does however do alot with his right hand, actually he does everything with his right hand apart from write! He also kicks with his right foot.  He has terrible troubles with his balance and co ordination which again may or may not be linked.

My little brother is 11 and he is also left handed, he struggles with writing and balance and co ordination, more so than my son does.  BUT he is amazingly clever, his school work is way beyond 'the norm'.  He spells better than anyone in our family including my mum! He spells words I cant even say! He was reading and doing sums at the age of 3!

The one thing I have noticed is that they are both very clumsy!

[Kaitlynsmum]

Thanks for your experiences;  I have no worries at all about dd's balance - she has always been physically capable, despite glue ear which I thought might have slowed down her balance. Will watch with interest to see how she goes with her writing.

[sandraorion]

I am left handed and Adrian is very strongly left handed. He started showing strong left hand preference before his first birthday and never looked back. I don't know how much watching me influenced him. Apparently, he was unimpressed by his dad's righthandness.

As a kid, I did too the backwards letters, but my parents were right handed and I was imitating their hand movements, or so I thought. It will be interesting to see if Adrian will do it too, or he will get them right by watching me write.