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I often hear people say, "My daughter mixes up her b's and d's, she must be dyslexic". While it is true that one of the signs of dyslexia is reversals, did you know that it is actually quite common for young children to experience reversals?
Most, if not all, children write with some reversals while they are learning to read and write. Experts tell us that reversals are typical in children until sometime in second grade. During second grade, most children gradually move toward correct writing and the reversals disappear. However, there are some children who persist in many, or at least some reversals, and for these children, we will need to work with them to correct these difficulties.
Reversals can take many forms. There are the well-known b/d and b/p reversals. Additionally, there can be confusion with u/n, q/g, and M/W, as well as the numbers 6/9. These letters can be confused, because each letter is an actual reversal of the other letter. Then, of course, any letter can be reversed or flipped upside down. When this is done, the reversed/flipped letter doesn't actually create another letter, it is simply written incorrectly. Entire words can also be written backwards. An example of this would be to write the word "spat" as "taps".
In order to help a child who struggles with reversals, you will want to work on directionality. When reading or writing in English, we read left to right and top to bottom. There are a number of activities to encourage this habit, one of the more common being to ask the child to draw a line with their pencil under a row of text from left to right, coming up and making a loop (like a cursive lowercase l or e) around a specified letter (for instance, the letter "a") every time it appears in the text, and then continuing to move to the right.
Another important thing to remember is that multi-sensory, fun activities will go a long way towards helping your child learn the correct formation for the letters. Letters can be written in salt, flour, shaving cream and other mediums. Letters can also be written in the air or with chalk on pavement. The larger movements, coupled with the multi-sensory aspect, will give fun writing practice. The possibilities are endless! (Click here to learn more about my book, Active Activities for Reading which has many, many multi-sensory alphabet activities).
One of my children struggled with reversals with about 12 letters and numbers. We daily practiced multi-sensory writing activities, and after many months, he was successful at writing his letters correctly!
Remember that repetition is vital to success. Some children who struggle in this area may need hundreds of repetitions in order to solidify the correct formation of the letter in their minds. If the letter has consistently been written incorrectly for many years, it will take time to correct the reversal because you need to make new pathways in the brain and override the old habits.
With practice and multi-sensory actions, reversals can be corrected. Be patient, and keep practicing because eventually, your child will experience success.