Mirror Writing

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I am just curious if anyone has experience with this? Our son is 4.5yrs old and has just starting writing his letters etc. I have noticed especially when he writes his name he mirror writes? I don't really know what to do about this? So far I have just taken the wait and see approach?

Is he lefty, righty, or ambidextrous?

At this stage still ambidextrous. Depends what he is doing. If he eats he prefers right hand. If he writes he uses both. When playing sports or throwing he uses both. He is still quite behing in gross and fine motor skills though. Something we have been working on

I was just reading a thing my son's kindergarten teacher sent home that says that learning to write from left to right is NOT intuitive, it is something that must be explicitly taught to all kids. At 4.5, I don't think writing words and letters backwards is really atypical. When you try to get him to do it the correct way, does he find it incredibly difficult?

He does have a difficult time with it even after help. He can write it with help (me holding his hand and helping guide the strokes of pen) but then if left to his own he will always mirror write. From what I read it can just be as you said a learned behavior and will come with time. Just worried because he seems so much more at ease with it than the "standard" writing.

It is totally normally for kids to mirror write at your son's age, and up through about first grade, I think. After that, they get locked into our left to right world.

I think at 4 the emphasis should be on knowing the letters, not on which way they point, so don't get too caught up on this one issue. Left to right is a construction of our forefathers, not nature. Most kids flip easily from one direction to the other; totally normal.

Until he really sticks with a side, I'm guessing his brain will keep thinking both forward and backward writing looks correct. Once his brain really understand "rightness" and "leftness" he will probably correct it himself.

Does he write backwards with both hands or just his left? I know lefties are more likely to mirror write than righties.

Mirror writing is common at this age. Forming letters is important, though. One thing you can practice with your son is called "Sky Writing." When you are teaching him the proper form, stand up in front of him with your arm out and who him how to write the letter in a big way. Make sure he is using his whole arm. For instance, with T, stand up with your preferred hand, and make a big motion from up to down, saying, "Start at the top and go straight down, then back up to the top and move across!" Stand behind him and help him "Write" with his arm. The large muscle groups need to learn the movements just as much as the little muscle groups. This is a very tactile/kinisthetic way for kids to learn their letters and they really like it. We also do something called monkey, chicken, giraffe. For letters that are tall, the kids do a "giraffe" where they stretch up tall with their neck. For chicken letters (letters that are below the midline), they squat, and for letters with a tail on the bottom, like a j, y, etc. we do a monkey tail where they swish their butts to the side. So for example, if we are spelling the word cat, they would say "chicken, chicken, giraffe." For monkey, they would say, "chicken, chicken chicken, giraffe, chicken, monkey." Then they can spell with the letters but do the body movements at the same time. I know this all sounds weird, but in person, you'd know what I mean. Point is, these excercises help train the muscle groups and the brain to recognize and form letters correctly. But again, at 4.5 don't worry too much. The main thing we look for in Kindergarten is letter recognition of most if not all capital and lowercase letters, the ability to write one's name, and letter sounds. It's okay if there are some reversals.

Thanks for all the positive responses!! I was just surprised as he is our 3rd child and the other 2 never did that. The ideas from snekane sound great! I will give them a hot for sure

Yay!! Let me know how it works out for you!! The idea behind the chicken monkey giraffe is that our brains will recognize the shapes of words as well. Think about how when you are driving and you see an exit sign with a road name, even when you are miles away from it, you know what it says. Part of that is because your brain has memorized the actual shape of the word, the small chicken letters, the monkey tails and the giraffe necks. Boys also tend to really need the tactile kinisthetic ways for writing to help train the large muscles, because they tend to be better with their gross motor skills. This helps them with those fine motor muscles in the hands. Plus, boys love to wiggle and move. On top of being a fourth grade classroom teacher, I'm also one of our district Master Reading teachers, and so I help a lot in the earlier grades with these kinds of issues. Little ones REALLY get into monkey, chicken, giraffe. HEHE!!