Backwards Letters: Normal development or early indicator of dyslexia?

The Five-Year-Old hates, just hates, writing in lower case. I can't get her to do it. Nothing works. Not even M&Ms.

I'm sure her teacher would appreciate it if I pressed the issue of lower-case writing at home. But on the theory that some writing at home is better than no writing, I let her use whatever kinds of letters she likes. If she wants to ban the use of lower case letters by Five-Year-Olds in the house, she can. If she wants to draw a huge dot over her I's and color it in for 5 seconds, she can. If she wants to connect her upper case letters to each other with little squiggly lines at the bottom and call it cursive, she can.

When I asked her the other day why she hated writing in lower case, she said it was because she could never remember whether the b's or the d's faced forward. (Ironic for a child who regularly writes her 5's as 2's and upper-case Y's and J's backwards.)

Still, it turns out that this is a very common problem for kindergarteners. From Education.com:

"In kindergarten and first grade, for example, many children write “b” instead of “d,” and may sometimes confuse “p,” “q,” and “g.” Teachers see these errors all the time, and gradually work to help kids fix them. But as a caring parent, should you worry? The stakes are high. Do these letter problems signal something deeper, such as dyslexia?"

Short answer: Not necessarily. According to Linda Selvin, Executive Director of the New York branch of the International Dyslexia Association, most of the kids who write b instead of d are just making a very common mistake. It's only if your child also has trouble discerning between letter sounds (mistaking the b sound in bear for a d or a p for example), hearing initial sounds in words, identifying sight words like is and the, or rhyming words like bat and cat, that you might begin to think about dyslexia. Read the whole thing.

Bonus Friday Tidbit: StoryCorps Interview between Sarah Littman and her son Joshua

This animated version of Sarah Littman's 2006 interview with her then 12-year-old son Joshua has been making the rounds on Facebook this week. The most touching moment happens around minute 2:43, but the entire interview is truly heart-warming.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Although it's been a while since Caterpickles appeared on the Patch, there's a new post at least three times a week at Caterpickles.com. C'mon over and explore the many, many mysteries of The Five-Year-Old's universe. This week we've investigated whether pearls are mummified parasites, how they make those magenta pearls you find at Kohl's, and who would prevail in a head-to-head smackdown between the Twilight vampires and Shaun the Sheep.

Related articles

• Backwards Letters: Could It Be Dyslexia? (education.com)