Do you have students who reverse letters? Without a doubt, this is the most common issue I dealt with as a Learning Assistance Teacher. Personally, I don’t think there is a teacher anywhere, even in high school, who hasn’t encountered students who reverse and confuse letters. It is an issue that frustrates teachers, parents and students. New Balance Pas Cher

The first step toward a solution is understanding why children confuse letters. We have to realize that, from a child’s perspective, a chair is a chair no matter which way it is turned. Why, then, should these abstract squiggles we call letters be any different? If we flip a chair, it is still a chair, but if we flip a ‘b’ it is no longer a ‘b’. How confusing for youngsters! In addition, children who struggle with this problem typically have memory issues and simply can’t remember the very subtle differences between similar looking letters.

Next we have to:

1. identify the frequency of the problem – if, for example, they usually identify /b/ correctly but sometimes confuse it with /d/, it could be a developmental issue that will self-correct.
2. identify where the reversals occur – reading, printing or both (usually both!) We are often more aware of the print reversals – in our very busy classrooms, there are few opportunities to listen to all students read regularly.
3. identify and record the specific letters being confused. Nike Air Max 2017 Dames zwart This will often point to an appropriate remediation procedure. (eg. Dallas Mavericks I once had a parent contact me because her son confused ‘r’ and ‘n’. One of the first things I enquired about was his visual-motor skills. He had visual-motor difficulties – when making ‘r’, he would often extend the line a bit too far, making it look like ‘n’ and, conversely, when making ‘n’, if he lifted his pencil too soon, it would look like ‘r’. We needed to remediate the actual letter formations.)

Ideally, the best way to deal with letter reversals is to prevent them in the first place. Linking each letter to a picture cue in the shape of the letter will significantly reduce letter confusion for the majority of students. Kanken 20L Instead of having to make sense of those abstract letters, they will have a visual/concrete image to relate to. Maglie Detroit Pistons Our Itchy’s Alphabet Book, with a picture cue and a clear plastic letter overlay, makes this connection for children. https://itchysalphabet.com/flip_book.php

Realistically, however, we do have to remediate reversals for some students and provide them with proven strategies that will help them overcome these problems:

1. Create a visual/concrete connection by linking each letter the student confuses to a picture cue in its shape. nike air max 90 femme pas cher Provide the child with those cues at his/her desk.
2. Provide drill and practice activities for remediation. nike air max 2016 Automaticity-type drills are effective for both letter identification and formation. Repeat regularly to develop mastery.

• Present rows of the letters being confused (eg ‘p’ and ‘q’). Have student identify just the picture cue they visualize (pig puppet or queen). Once this is mastered, have students use this cue to then identify the sounds (not letter names).
• Call out letter sounds and have students verbalize as they print ‘first the arm, then the puppets head’ or ‘first the queen’s head, then her hair hangs down her back’. Cheap Fjallraven Kanken Classic Be sure to focus on lower case letters.

Here’s what one Reading Consultant had to say: “I’ve been tutoring a second grader with a significant reading and writing disability. Her teachers used all of the traditional strategies to eliminate the (b/d) reversal as did I, but nothing was successful. That is, until I used your ‘b/d Reversal Strategy”.