My youngest child is 6 and in K. He writes letters from the bottom to the top, despite being instructed otherwise. He writes very neatly. His teacher says he is the only one is class still doing this. His reading is on target and he shows no sign of being LD in any other way.
His older LD brother did the same and it caused lots of problems later on, especially with differentiating between b and d ect. Through therapy, we got the essential ones corrected but he still makes his f from the bottom f, very fluently so I have let it alone.
So should I be concerned with the younger one and if so, what should I do. Would doing Handwriting Without Tears over the summer help?
Beth
Re: K writes letters from bottom up
Well, you say you have seen the problems this can cause with your older one, and you know it’s not good, so yes, definitely, work on it now. I am presently working with two kids in Grade 2 and one in Grade 4 with this exact problem, and the longer it is left to go on, the worse it gets. The kids with the worst writing organization/directionality problems are also the ones with severe math problems. I don’t know the HWT program, but anything that works, do it.
Re: K writes letters from bottom up
To be the devil’s advocate, I have a sixth grade student who was not identified until about April of 4th grade. He is now functioning very close to grade level. His IQ is in the very low 100’s (I say this just to make clear he is not gifted). He is strong in math, solidly at grade level on our very aggressive CA math standards that teach prealgebra to 6th grade and many concepts I never had until 7-8th grade (you know, back when schools were better, according to many of our detractors).
He forms all letters from bottom up. This habit was so well established I saw no point to trying to break it at age 10. His writing is neat and he is fast enough.
Re: K writes letters from bottom up
Well, hope for the best for him.
But “fast enough” — I teach high school and college, and there is a nasty shock of cold water there if you’re barely keeping up in middle school. I’d love to hear in a few years if he is still keeping up.
Re: K writes letters from bottom up
So what would you think about K who does this? He has been taught correctly at school but it doesn’t stick. My LD son did the same thing.
Would you try Handwriting without Tears?
As Linda says, I hardly need another therapy program. So I don’t want to do it, if it isn’t necessary.
I don’t see any other signs of LD in my K. He can sound out any one syllable word with basic code in it and knows some advanced code. He could tell me the sounds that sh and th. And yesterday he told me pink was spelled pinck. When I told I told him, it was pink, he said but usually “k” at the end of the word is “ck”. I am amazed by how a normal kid puts all this together!!
The handwriting issues appear to be inherited—no one except me in my family seems to hold a pencil correctly. But, it was only a minor annoyance until we hit my LD son. My K appears to be in the minor annoyance category but now I may just know too much!
Beth
Re: K writes letters from bottom up
We got our LD son to change the way he made b and d which made a big difference. But most of it we never got to change and he is quite efficient at it. Is the issue that of directionality? He is still reversing some of his numbers.
Beth
Re: K writes letters from bottom up
I’ll be truthful with you, Beth, I have never had the time in my program to make an issue of this. Teaching K-6 with only one part time para, it is darn hard to sit next to a child day in and day out and work on this. It is hard to break. I have thought of having them practice making straight lines, top down and orally saying that or something cute if you can think of it while they practice. Ditto for circles, I have used a clock face and had them practice, starting at 2:00, to try to establish accepted directionality.
Make sure he has front, back, left, right,up, down, over and under automatic.
You could do HWT. It is easy to do and cheap to buy. I know you need to be doing more remediation like you need another hole in your head. But you could.
I am watching my little one like a hawk. I see little glitches here and there but he just doesn’t have that overall gestalt kind of LD picture.