I have 2 Lefties – my 6.5yo and my 4yo.
Peterson Directed Handwriting has a file or two of information about teaching handwriting with a Leftie. One main thing is that they should tilt their page (the opposite way from a RH person – and more) even for printing – so that their hand goes under what they are writing. Don’t let them do a hook hand overtop.
I wouldn’t do the different letter formation that mrsmccardell suggested – but that is because we do Italics – and when you switch to joined-italic (ie, cursive) – you join out of the cross!
My 6.5yo took forever to be able to write clearly. She is VERY prone to writing backwards. When she was young (ie, 4) – she would write her name like this…. ohce (well, her name backwards, not her code-name of echo) – starting at the right of the page. Also often the letters themselves would be backwards. (btw – the Peterson Directed Handwriting (cursive first) itself did NOT work well for my Leftie)
I think my next Leftie might be easier to teach (haven’t started yet) – as the writing she does on her own doesn’t tend to be backward or jumbled like my first Leftie. I’ve heard that the Lefties that tend to be more prone to backwards writing and messy writing are those that seemed to take a long time to pick which hand was dominant… They may have “mixed dominance”. Echo – well, I suspected that she was going to be Left Handed when she was young – but wasn’t sure. She would mostly color, etc with her left – but I’d say it was about 60% left, 40% right…. then 70% left, 30% right…. then 90% left, 10% right…. finally all left handed. Foxtrot, on the other hand, was consistantly picking up the crayon with her left-hand by age 2. Golf, at age 2, consistantly is right-handed.
btw – for many things, the best way to teach manual things to a Leftie is to sit opposite them so they can mirror your movements. (ie – tying shoes…)
I also got some advice from a Leftie that I’ve found helpful about scissors…. teach your Lefite to hold the scissors in their RH and the paper in the Left. It really does serve them better. First off, with precision paper cutting, the control of the paper is the key thing – so that will be with their dominant hand. But the main thing is the whole thing with scissors. Most of the time it is so hard to get LH’d scissors. Say they are at church or scouting or something that is oding a “craft” with paper-cutting…. out come the box of scissors. They are almost all going to be RH’d scissors – if not all of them. Also – beware – uni-scissors that are supposed to be for either hand are still RH scissors. The handle is made to make it more comfortable for a LH’d person – but the way the blades cross is still for a RH’d person.
hth!
