Writing in Mirror Images

One of the first things I noticed when the little one started writing her first alphabets and numbers was her tendency to write mirror images - 3 would be E, C would be turned around, b would d and so on. It worried me for quite a while. I am one of those mothers who is hooked on to Google (being a journalist makes it a career for me) and all those articles I have read of autism, attention deficiency, compulsive this and compulsive that kind of freaked me out.

So what I did is sat down with my daughter's earlier Montessori teacher and tried to understand what exactly is the deal. She explained to me that structured learning, especially for a child who has come out of the Montessori style of learning can take a bit of getting used to. Its the same case with a child who may have come out of those rote-learning places as well. Just because your child writes a few letters the other way round does not mean there is something wrong with her. It just means she is experimenting with all that she is learning and wants to know why 3 can't be E or the other way round.

What worked for me was a kind of sequencing of numbers. So I told her something to the effect of "1 2 3 face one way because they play together - 4 5 6 look the other way till 1 2 and 3 are ready... that's why 7 looks at 6, 8 sits with a big face, 9 makes a bubble which bursts into a 1 and 0 making 10.

Not saying that this worked miracles the first time round, but it helped get her attention and helped her view numbers in a more playful manner. She took a while getting the sequence right, which is natural. It can get very annoying a times when the mirror images come back after a day or two of not practicing, but then we must remember that we have almost several generations worth of practice behind us and they are just starting.

I tried not to make something like a "study time" but included number games at times when she was most pliable. For us it was bath time - so  1- 10 magnets in her bath tub to play around with worked. Teaching her to play UNO and recognizing the difference between 6 and 9 because of the line worked. Air writing worked well for me too.