A weird question about writing

[~Nikki~]

My 5 year old has been writing since she was 3. She started with her first name, then Mom and Dad, then her last name, phone number, "I love you"....and so on and so forth.

My question regards what's been happening in the past 6 months, at most. After at least a year of writing primitive, kindergarten words...she's started writing backwards. And I don't mean just a letter here and there, which is pretty standard for the five year old crew. I mean completely mirror imaged sentences, seemingly unintentional. I found a scrap of paper with a sentence written on it about a month ago, and could not for the life of me figure out what it said. Until I read it right from left, and realized the letters and words were completely mirror imaged. She does it now and then, and doesn't seem to be noticing she's doing it. This weekend, she kept score at a sports game for us, and did it again, but with the numbers. Completely mirror image, right to left across the page.

Is this normal development? I've never ever seen a child do this to this magnitude. And the fact that she's oblivious to it (ie: it's not just a fun thing she's doing for laughs) is the part that really concerns me.

Thoughts? Am I an idiot for being worried at all? :P

[robin1377]

My 5 yo writes in perfect mirror image from time to time. I thought it was pretty phenomenal the first few times it happened but I'm starting to think it's a developmental thing. For the most part she writes in the usual manor, she's doing well in school and doesn't seem to show any signs of dyslexia. I think it's probably just that the visual part of their brains are learning so much in regards to reading and righting at this stage. They probably just get a little overloaded from time to time.

[Samm]

This seems to be normal according to my daughter's K teacher. She said it happens more often with boys and yeah, they don't even know they are doing it. My daughter just did this with my name this weekend and she really surprised when I pointed it out to her.

[MotheringHeart]

Very normal. It is just the way that the learning process happens. No need to worry!

[~Nikki~]

Cool, thanks for responding! Good to know that it's nothing too freaky.

[lightheart]

our son, age 6, 1st grade writes many of his letters backwards, if they are really messy, forward or backward, his teacher will mark things wrong (well write the letter neatly beside it in red, no big red X's or anything), but she leaves the just backwards letters alone, I'm assuming it's 'normal' because she isn't bringing those to his attention specfically. We have parent teacher confrence on Thursday and backward's writing is something I'm going to ask about.

Don't think your being over the top thinking this might be a concern, keep an eye out on how she continues and if you notice her getting clogged down, not advanceing, on her reading/writing skills then maybe look into it further.

[nextcommercial]

It's very normal between ages four and six. They will sometimes write the entire word backwards, or sometimes just some letters.

[Britishmum]

Very normal. Dd (6) suddenly did it today. She made a book, and was writing the title on the cover. She accidentally turned the book around to the back cover, and wrote the title in complete mirror image across the cover, and didn't even notice. And she's writing completely independently, and has been for a long while. Their brain is just not wired to notice it yet, so it appears normal to them. When I pointed it out to dd, she turned the book over and wrote it again correctly, but it hadn't bothered her to have it mirror image and back to front.

[milkybean]

My friend used to teach at Head Start. One day I noticed that her daughter was writing backwards in sidewalk chalk. It weirded me out, but she assured me that it was totally normal and fine. Nothing to think twice about.

I have old stuff that I wrote, because my mom died and I took everything that she kept, and it seems that I did NOT go through that backwards phase, and that weirds me out more than the backwards stuff. My brother did, though, and that guy is brilliant.

[LynnS6]

Our daughter has been doing that since she started to write. For her, it's because she's left handed and it's easier for her to go from right to left when writing.

I've done my homework on this, and it's very normal. Kids this age are still figuring out a lot of things about print, directionality included!