reversals

I haven’t worked much with 3rd grade so I hope others will post their better answers to your good question. In my limited experience, reversals in 3rd grade can still happen but commonly by 3rd grade, most kids are not doing this anymore.

Your post isn’t quite clear on when he does this. When writing only? Or does he seem to do this as he reads too?

He does it whem writing but confuses similar looking words when reading too.When reading he gets fustrated real easy because of this and often asks sounds of letters and what some similar looking letters are.He is very bright and this is how he is getting by he has an excellent comphrenision and gets by on that.He does have some speech articulation problems and is in speech therapy at school.

By nine years old, he shouldn’t be regularly doing this. I don’t worry about it in a first grader, and even for some second graders although it should be happening less often by then. So, yes, I’d be concerned about a third grader who’s still regularly reversing letters and numbers.

How is his reading? Does his teacher say it’s at grade level?

He mainly reads by memorization He cant sound out words.He gets good grades because of his comprhension is well above average.he cant read books his sister in first grade does.He is only getting by in my opinion by be smart and it is catching up to him now.He prints he dont write in cursive because he cant remeber how to form the letters.He still reverses letters in his name.

Reversals are not that common in third grade, but I definately have seen it. Since he is so bright he may respond to hints that could be used to help him remember which way a letter goes. For example, b and d are often confused and the simple way to remember formation is to use your hands and make a fist and turn both knuckles so they are facing eachother. This will show the left hand making the b and the right hand making the d. B comes before d in the alphabet. I am sure others can chime in on tricks they have used in the past. Common reversals are b, d, p, g,j, and y. I usually put a alphaet strip on their desk and highlight commonly misformed words. These are strategies to compensate for his difficulties, but I would investigate further on the reading reversals. Is he actually seeing the letters correctly? Does he have any difficulty copying from the board? You may want someone to screen his visual perceptual abilities. Good Luck Kelly

Reversals are not that common in third grade, but I definately have seen it. Since he is so bright he may respond to hints that could be used to help him remember which way a letter goes. For example, b and d are often confused and the simple way to remember formation is to use your hands and make a fist and turn both knuckles so they are facing eachother. This will show the left hand making the b and the right hand making the d. B comes before d in the alphabet. I am sure others can chime in on tricks they have used in the past. Common reversals are b, d, p, g,j, and y. I usually put a alphaet strip on their desk and highlight commonly misformed words. These are strategies to compensate for his difficulties, but I would investigate further on the reading reversals. Is he actually seeing the letters correctly? Does he have any difficulty copying from the board? You may want someone to screen his visual perceptual abilities. Good Luck Kelly

he wears glasses and has for 4 years.He reverses all letters and maily 5 and 6 in his numbers.He does have a alphabet numberline on his desk he copies very slow and has is very messy no space between words.

My son is about the same age as yours and has trouble with reversals. We had him go through a battery of psycho-educational test which showed he had visual perception problems. We have since had him work with a developmental optomitrist for 3 months and now he is working with an occupational therapist. She has him work on tangram puzzles, “what is the difference” puzzle picture books by Usborne Picture Puzzles, practice tracing images and completing drawings that are on large graph paper. Helping Children Overcome Learning Difficulties by Jerome Rosner has chapter on Visual and Auditory perception skills and how to test for them. There are peg board designs that you can use to test and later remediate the child’s difficulties. I child this age should not be making reversals, so it is time to take action, good luck. By the way, I am seeing fewer reversals, both letter reversals and word reversals in my sons reading, so the therapy is working (though slow and expensive). You can do a lot of this type of therapy yourself with inexpensive tools.

Hi Jackie,

The other contributors are right, reversals at your son’s age are not common, especially at the frequency you describe, and in numbers as well as letters. I’d say visual processing is definitely suspect, but he may also have auditory perceptual difficulties, which actually underlie the bulk of reading problems such as you describe. If he has both, it is truly amazing he has compensated as well as he has for so long, and is probably a sign of his superior intelligence. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t let it wait any longer, he clearly needs some well-targeted intervention, and the sooner the better.

My son was identified as dyslexic in first grade, and he had that reversals issue too, well past third grade, despite RSP help, private tutoring, etc. Interestingly enough, though, his visual motor skills were great, in fact he is gifted in art, won awards, etc. The first grade testing on the VMI (Visual Motor Integration test) showed he was almost at 18 y.o. age equivalent in that area when he was only six. He explained to me recently (he is 20 now) that he sees things in three-D in his head, as if he is looking at them from all angles at once — that certainly explains the reversals issue, doesn’t it? He also has ADD, and he told me that when he was taking Adderal it made it easier for him to narrow down those multiple viewpoints and see things from just one angle. My theory is that these reversals may actually reflect a perceptual strength, though it doesn’t come out that way in the early years of reading and writing… He also had trouble memorizing words the “sight word” way, and had to be taught a phonics method (and this was in the heydey of whole language!). Your son should probably get a full neuropsych eval to see what’s going in, if you can arrange it. I would also look into PACE, as that addresses the visual, auditory and motor areas pretty well. Their website is at www.processingskills.com or www.learninginfo.com There is more info about these processing areas on my website also www.angelfire.com/on2/thepuzzle

Hope this helps, and feel free to email with more questions!

Sharon

who wore eyeglasses to correct severe congenital astigmatism, was still reading at a preschool level at age 8-1/2, had many writing reversals, clearly bright, good vocabulary and excellent comprehension, etc. She is now 11 and reading at an ending 6th grade level, thanks to several interventions and therapies. Here’s what we did……

First step was a developmental vision evaluation by a *good* developmental optometrist. This type of eval tests about 20 visual functions not covered in a regular eye exam. My daughter had severe developmental vision delays (binocularity, tracking, saccades, restricted field-of-vision, very slow focusing, etc.) — probably related to the congenital astigmatism, but undiagnosed by her opthalmologist because he has no training in developmental vision milestones. My daughter was in vision therapy for 8 months to bring her visual efficiency skills up to age-appropriate levels. You can learn more about developmental vision delays at http://www.visiontherapy.org, http://www.vision3d.com, and http://www.children-special-needs.org. You can find developmental optometrists in your area at http://www.covd.org.

At the same time, we used Reading Reflex at home (the book is $16 in most bookstores, and website is http://www.readamerica.net) to teach basic decoding skills. This was very effective at teaching how to decode words, and very fast, but my daughter’s reading fluency was still terrible even after vision therapy — very jerky and halting.

At this point we put her through a cognitive training program (in our case, PACE, http://www.learninginfo.com). This developed her visual processing skills to the point that she could process text fast enough to apply the decoding skills she had learned from Reading Reflex, and her reading became normally fluent.

The last thing we did was a Reading Reflex intensive to teach her advanced decoding skills.

PACE is very expensive, but Audiblox is also very good at developing cognitive skills — especially with directionality and visual processing. Book, video, and starter kit of manipulatives is about $80 from the website, http://www.audiblox2000.com

My personal recommendation is to schedule a developmental vision evaluation, buy the book “Reading Reflex”, and invest in Audiblox. When deciding on a developmental optometrist, look for one who is willing to supervise a primarily home-based program of vision therapy, if it is needed, in order to keep costs down.

Reversals at your son’s age are a common red flag for developmental vision delays. I think it is less likely that he has an auditory processing problem because his comprehension is so good, although you could check that out if Audiblox and “Reading Reflex” have no effect.

I would also recommend joining the DyslexiaSupport list at http://www.groups.yahoo.com. The archived posts contain a wealth of information, and the parents on that list are very helpful.

Mary

I agree with Annie - he needs a comprehensive neuropsyche exam to tease out the exact areas causing him difficulty. Jackie, your comments about him not being able to sound out words but reading by memorization strongly suggest that he may have difficulty with phonemic awareness. I see kids like him all the time who are very bright, so bright that they can memorize words (we call them sight word readers) and that gets them through the first couple years of school. But by third or fourth grade, it catches up with them because they have no skills to decode more complicated words. One can only memorize so many words before hitting a wall. He needs a solid reading program. But before spending money on any programs, get him the testing he needs. Has he been tested at all yet? Was there an IEP? You’ve got to know just where his difficulty lies before remediating.

He only hasa IEP for speech he goes there 3 times a week.His teacher does lots of modifications and interventions for him.He writes real slow so some work he dictates to her.I talked to her last night and she already talked to the school psy about testing him soon with my okay.She knew we want any help we can for him.She lives a few dors down from us so we talk quite often.Last year his teacher wanted him tested but our pricipal said just to make modifications and let him do some work verbally he thinks testing is a waste of money and some kids out grow problems by middleschool.He also said a lot of my sons problems could be from his articualtion problems he has been in speech for 4 years now and still has several sounds to work on now he is working on the /l/ and /k/ sounds.His teacher asked me if I would let him go the the sp. ed class for phonics after Christmas break for along with writing and spelling too.He would go for 45 mins to a 90 mins a day.She said she talked to the teacher in there and she would like to start working with him soon because the testing could take 3 months to complete and school would be close to being over and another year lost.she said this could be possible since he already has a IEP and all his past teachers have made the same cooments about his high intelligence and that is how he is getting by.She also said he should qualify for OT services too and the OT would start observing him this coming tuesday with my permission and I will meet her that day too when I drop him off at school.

Why not try to attack this problem is a very direct manner. Have him trace the letters on texture while saying the letter name and sound it usually represents? I can email you directions for forming letters and numerals.

You can also visit my website at and go to Supplementary Materials. There you will find some very inexpensive cards which can be placed under plastic needlepoint canvas for the child to trace.

If you start with letters and sounds, then progress to simple words, and keep working with this concept, I think you’ll see some progress. Third grade is not too late to remediate handwriting, spelling, and reading but after that I think children become resistant because they’ve experienced so much failure. It sounds as though your son has everything in place for comprehension but decoding is a problem. I’d focus in the above areas and I think the decoding will come. Grace

Thanks to everyone that gave advice.the school psy already started testing.He is doing a Woodcock Johnson test and a some others I dont remeber the names.The OT started testing today too.