Mary Kostka explains why kids reverse letters like b and d through second grade, and how it connects to spatial awareness. She teaches five strategies: floor-mapping with tape, rotating letter manipulatives, body movements to remember shapes, play-dough modeling, and tricks like the magic-C grouping.
Aloha. Mary Koska, here with ohana occupational therapy, ohanaot.com and we are in our how to Improve Handwriting course. This lesson is all about letter reversals. And the first thing to know about letter reversals is that it's pretty normal when they're first learning, especially even all the way into second grade, which a lot of people don't realize that, but it's actually pretty normal. So we need to take a little bit of pressure off the kids and just help them learn. One of the things, it tends to kind of come along with understanding your right and left side of your body. So one of the things I really like to do is make a map on the floor, just a whole bunch of random lines with masking tape and teach them right and left turns. So they're walking along the line and I say, turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right and maybe do with their eyes closed. And then I walk on the line and they have to tell me if I have to turn right or if I have to turn left. So they really have to be able to understand the two sides of their body to get this concept. Letter reversals are most common with the letters that basically can. They're the same shape, but depending on how you turn it around, it's a different letter. And the classic is BDP and Q because it is a straight line and a curve. So whether you have it like this or like this or like this or like this, you know, I've got the same object here, but symbolically, it's something different in every position. So this is especially challenging for our really good creative brains that can see things in that 3D in their mind. And it just makes this so challenging for them because it's the same object, it's just different in different positions. So one of the things I love to do to make this a little bit easier is these are the pieces out of the handwriting without tears. Remember I said I was talking about big line, little line, big curve, little curve. So I like playing a game where we move. We just keep this still. We move this around into the different positions. And very quickly they have to say if it's B, D, P or Q. And we play games and I have to do it, they have to do it. And just so they can very rapidly, depending on where it is, know which letter it is. And that really is a helpful thing. Another one that's really fun to do, this might be a little bit hard to explain without showing it, so maybe I'll make another video just to show this one. But. But you write randomly B, D, P and Q on a whiteboard, and the curved part is, in your imagination is your body. And so you have to raise your arm up or kick your leg out for this part of it. So if you were doing the letter B, I'm going to turn around and make this more sense. So if I was doing the letter B, it would be like this, and that would be the letter D. I'll probably make a video to make that one a little bit easier to understand. But that's a really great one. That really helps them lock it into their body, that their body is the curved part and their arms and legs are the sticks. And then they can kind of relate it to themselves. And that makes it a lot easier to understand. Rolling out some play doh or clay and making the letters physically is a really helpful. Making it just more concrete and something real makes it easier to understand. And another strategy I really like, sometimes you can use a cognitive strategy to help them remember, is that when you do the Alphabet, A, B, C, D, that C, when you make a C, it turns into a D. So that's pretty simple. And then there's the honey bee. So if you make an H, they usually don't reverse H for some reason. Make an H and just keep going. It turns into a B. So that's a honeybee. So that's a little cognitive strategy that can work. In the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum, the group letters, they have the magic C letters. So every letter that starts with the C stroke, So S and O and the D, the letter D, the letter G. All the letters that start with the stroke of a C first is another way to lock in which ones are to keep them from getting reversed. Oh, one more strategy I really love. Took me a long time to realize this. Actually, it's a really easy one. They never reverse a capital B. I've never seen in almost 30 years anybody reverse a capital B. Well, when you have the letter B, let's see if I can. Well, I don't have the other. See, I'm all mixed up looking at this to figure out which way it goes. But anyway, so the line and the two curves, if you just pluck off the top, that's your lowercase B. So that's another way to help them remember. So those are my favorite strategies for letter reversals. Hope that was helpful. See you in the next video. Aloha.
