Letter reversals is common in many school aged children. This occurs when a child is confused on the orientation of a letter or word. Many parents may fear that their child is having a learning disability which is not always the case. For many school aged children, letter reversals is a hard habit to break. Prevention and structure can help your child to change this habit.
Prevention of letter reversals is better than having to provide intervention later on in life. Prevention of this action will avoid struggles long term when writing the written language. Teaching activities need to be specifically targeted to letter reversal for it to work properly. There are 5 factors that are instrumental in mastering proper letter formation.
The first step is establishing a good visual memory of the letter and a word. Students who are reversing letter forms will often not have a good memory of the visual of the letter. Students need to be able to picture the letter in their mind before they can successfully begin to write the letter themselves.
The second step is to have a memory of the proper stroke sequence to create a letter. For example, the correct way to write the letter “b” starts with the line going from top to bottom and the second line goes around. With the letter “d” the “c” part is created first then the top line is drawn down. It is important to create letters this way because for letters that are similar such as “b” and “d” the stroke of creating the letters feels unique which helps a student to differentiate the actual letters.
The third part of helping a student to avoid letter reversals is having a memory of the correct direction of the strokes used to create a letter. For example, the top of a “T” has a horizontal line that should be made from left to right. Letters with vertical lines should be created from top to bottom.
Fourth, students must understand the unique similarities and differences of each letter. “S” and “c” have similar stokes. When a student lumps these together mentally, the memory load is reduced so that letters can be formed more quickly.
The final element in preventing letter reversals is the understanding of how letters form together to create words and sequences. Writing letters into words does not come automatically. In order to truly understand letters and words it must be practiced.
To learn more and to set your child up at Learning Lab Chicago, call us today at 312.789.5151 or click here www.learninglabchicago.com/
