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Handwriting with left handed beginner
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I have read a lot about teaching left handed children cursive first. I have a 4 year old lefty who, if not prompted to start at the left, will write his name completely backwards. I can see how cursive would correct this, however it seems to be quite challenging for such a young child.
I was hoping some of you might have had experience teaching a lefty and could offer some advice.
Thanks for any suggestions,
Rebekah
I have done both ways. My son who is a lefty started with print, and easily learned cursive later. Then my next child I did cursive as advised by the curriculum we were using at the time. She did great, but if I could do it over again I would make sure that she could at least have some practice with printing before beginning the cursive. She eventually wanted to learn print after cursive because all her little friends were printing. LOL
Back to lefties question… I do think my son would have benefitted from doing cursive first. He struggled with b and d and of course cursive is perfect for that issue. Just make sure that printing is at least practiced a little bit though. They need to know how to form both ways if needed.
Someone else posted once that their left handed child wrote their words backwards. I am a lefty and I also wrote in mirror image as a child. My writing is just fine now and I learned to print first. With practice, your child’s writing will improve. Try not to worry.
I have 2 lefties – 1 very often wrote backwards when young… the other doesn’t seem to more than any other 3yo… (she is only 3 right now).
I tried starting cursive first with my left-handed, with a great program – and we were getting nowhere. So thes fall I started with Italics, and she is doing great. (she just turned 6.)
The main thing with left handed writers, is they must tilt their paper (the opposite than a RH person would) – and they must tilt it a fair bit… and this is even when they print. This stops their hand from going right over where they are writing, and also help prevent the “hook” hand which is very hard to write any amount with.
Just one other note for LH’ers – a piece of advice I got from a LH person (with a LH husband) – teach them to cut with scissors in the RH. It really makes a difference. They have more paper control (which is important doing precision cutting) – RH scissors are everywhere and LH scissors are often not available… and the scissors that are supposed to be for either hand are NOT. (the way the blades are don’t allow you to see properly while you cut. The person that gave me the advice is LH and cuts with her RH… her husband is LH and cuts with LH, and always has problems (no scissors, etc…)
And one other general LH child advice…. (if you are RH)
For most things you want to teach them – sit across from them… they can do the mirror image.
I have a lefty. We followed CM’s thoughts and waited on handwriting. He was about 5 1/2 when we started and he didn’t have any problems. Before we did letters in sand and with playdough and such. Sometimes he writes letters backwards but I am not sure that is not common with all children at his age. Just my experience.
Amy
My oldest and youngest are both lefties. With the oldest we tried lots of things and nothing worked until Handwriting Without Tears. It was a blessing and a huge success. I also bought him some finger grips to go on the pencil to help with placement (he fisted and would NOT change without help). (Make sure it’s specific for left-handers not “generic” for both). My youngest (5 1/2 now) is just starting with HWOT and he’s doing really well. Oldest DID write in mirror image a lot, but he’s 11 now and I haven’t seen it in years. He’s also learning cursive and doing a fantastic job.
I also made sure that oldest son spent some time around left-handed people, watching how they held pencils, wrote, etc. Each lefty has a different way to do it and I wanted him to see that there were lots of ways to do a thing and that we wasn’t “weird”. Several of his friends and church teachers at the time commented that it was “weird” or “crazy” or whatever that he was a lefty and he had some anxiety that he was bad or different. The youngest doesn’t have the issue since he’s been around his older brother his whole life and thinks it’s normal, even cool.
There are some other good suggestions here too. Sometimes you just have to try a few until you find something that works for your child’s personality.
Heather
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