Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Writing name backwards...Mirror image

Well, this is a new one for me! So we came back from dd5 kindergarten conference...Teacher showed us a paper where daughter completely wrote her last name backwards---A complete mirror image. She had never done that before and has always written all words/letters/numbers correctly...Daughter is also an excellent reader...She wants desperately to have "permission" from teacher to start writing her name in cursive (she knows how to do it) Unfortunately teacher said no So I'm wondering if this backwards writing thing is just my daughter expressing her needs for more creativity or could it be something else lurking in the possible future? Anyone else with this experience? Why would this start now? It was just so odd for me to see...

My oldest DD did the same thing at the same age. When I talked with her about it, I determined she did it just to prove to herself she could. One thing about these kids is they will challenge themselves if no one else will!

Thanks for replying revmom! I asked my daughter why she did it and she said that she wanted to show her teacher that she could

Both of my kids did mirror perfect writing too. They did this in preschool. Therapist said it was a sign of intelligence. It was startling to me both times.

My dd, then 4, wrote a full page letter in mirror writing and I too wondered why on earth she was doing it. Turned out it was just for fun. They're funny little things.

My DD, then 4, addressed all of her Valentine's backwards when I wasn't watching. I asked her why and she said she thought it was funny. Go figure.

My DD did this for a little while this past year. I found it odd since she has been able to write with no problems. It wasn't until I talked to another mom that I found out her DD does it but she doesn't seem to be doing it for fun. DD sat across from her so I guess she was mocking her. I did talk to her and explained how her friend is trying to learn how to write and she needed to help her writing the correct way. Since then we haven't had any mirror image writing at school but on occasion she will do it at home ... just for fun.

My DS6 writes backwards all the time. I gave him a hand held mirror that he carries around with him so he can write secret messages in his notebook to his friends and then they use the mirror to read it. I asked the teacher about it and she said, "Isn't it wonderful! We learned all about Leonardo Da Vinci in class and Leonardo wrote backwards in many of his journals." She let my DS share his notebook and mirror at Show and Tell and it was a huge hit. So, it seems like you have little Leos on your hands!

lol, my DS6 did things like this a lot last year. He did little things to amuse himself. Spelling it backwards, scrambling the letters, writing some big and some small, doubling the letters, etc. Of course that is better than when he was 3yo in prek (and some at 4yo) writing "my name is poop" on the paper. He thought that was quite amusing. The teachers did not agree. They do lots of things to make their work more interesting. He even went through a little stage of intentionally mispelling words and trying to write like the other kids do.

DD8 did this too at that age. She also liked to write upside down and backwards at the same time. Her grandmother writes her letters that are upside down and backwards and she thought it was great so she taught herself to do it. Her preschool teacher promptly told us that we were not to allow her to do it because it would affect her ability to write properly and spell correctly! We got the same message from her 2nd grade teacher when she started writing her homework backwards or upside down or both when we weren't looking. (In reality, I saw the paper after she had gone to bed and felt that maybe it would send more of a message to her teacher than we had been able to get through. It didn't work and she was required to redo her work before it was accepted.)
She definitely did it out of boredom when she wanted to prove to someone she could do more than they were asking of her.

Silly teachers... will they never learn?

Heck, I've encouraged my kids to learn how to read & write upside down. While the latter is mostly for fun, reading upside down is an incredibly useful skill.

Shows that she has no clue about GT kids. So many students cannot retain information, but GT students don't forget. They have a high retention rate. I can't believe that some teachers still don't get this.

In 1973, I was in 8th grade. I was in a study to determine if highly accelerated students, who were non-Spanish speaking, could learn six weeks of Spanish - and retain their English. It sounded stupid then and even stupider now.

And yes, we remember English. It was a different time and schools were newly integrated with Spanish speakers.

Both my children have done this, it has never been an issue when it came time to write 'for real', I think it is just a natural expression of this new skill, how far can it be pushed.

Upside down and backward is just a preferred mode around this house...

bit curious about this; my dd4 is working on writing addition problems in kindergarten and executed a nice 3+4 = 7, all the numbers written in mirror writing... Kind of cool looking, actually, but it made me wonder about the difference between knowing to write a sentence or phrase or string of letters in a word from left to right, but not caring/knowing about the direction of the individual letters or numbers themselves...

My son does this constantly! And not just with his name, but other words too, and he knows it is backwards. He seems very proud of himself when he does it.

I think she is looking desperately for an outlet for her creativity.

I wonder ... if she sits across from the girl who writes backward, maybe she was showing her how to write correctly, which would be upside-down and backward from your DD's perspective!

My 9 year old did an entire asignment as a mirror image. It was alphebatizing 20 words that she had gotten all correct taking the PRETEST. But she had to practice the words anyway, just as she has had to all year. So she handed it in and told her teacher to hold it up to a mirror to correct it.

I recently had a meeting with the principal to request skipping 4th grade math next year. I brought the mirror image thing with me. I DO believe that this is a good reason to think that a child needs more!

We will see what her teachers have to say about that one! The principal denied me the request, even with her WJ at 99.6%.

Your comment about wanting to write in cursive yet not being allowed to makes me think she is writing backward as an added way to occupy her brain. The cursive is fun and challenging to her and since she can't do that, she has thought of this as a substitute.

It wouldn't surprise me that when she masters cursive and is encouraged to use it in school, she begins to experiment with different ways to form words. Learning about graphology was a fun past-time for me and I loved to "interpret" my friends handwriting to see if what the books said about their personality was something I had observed.

Just a thought.

we just joined the club today! Ds5 thinks its funny to write EVERYTHING backwards all of a sudden.

All of these stories make me smile ......

I shared (above image) earlier, showing the boy writing things backwards.
The image (below) shows his name written sideways. He wrote the W and I thought that's going off at a weird angle, you're not going to have room on the paper. (k, I've done that. Lol). But then he wrote all the letters sideways. Luckily I grabbed the camera in time. Silliness pure.

Wow! It's so neat to hear that other children are writing backwards too! And at the same age! My middle daughter when she was 4, used to write backwards. Someone told me that it was because her mind is thinking so fast that she knows the right way to write the letters but her brain takes an extra step to reverse the letters because it can. After reading your post, I remember in junior high I used to write notes to my friend backwards also. My youngest daughter, now 5, also reverses letters just because.

My dd did this at 4yo as well. She had been writing her name since she was 16 months old and writing all her letters correctly for a long time so I just figured it was something she thought was "neat" to do.

I used to do that!!! I just did it for fun and to curb boredom.

Interesting thread- my LO will do this too- write his name backwards, he's now 4yo, BUT...
he appears to be somewhat ambidextrous and has not chosen a hand yet- anyone else's kiddos struggling with handedness and direction of text? hmmm...

DD5 used to write her name upside-down and mirror image when she was 3. She still gets it backwards sometimes.

DS7 still gets numbers and letters backwards from time to time . . . the teacher and principal agreed it's still developmentally normal.

edit: both are unambiguously right-handed.

Mine did this at 5 or 6 years, but in a spiral, backwards and mirrored...

when I asked her why she had written that way, she didn't even realize she had done it any differently than usual(thereby starting an ongoing question for me about some strange form of dyslexia, lol)

Her grandpa used to write that way for fun, it turns out. We found his old algebra book and his name and address are written backwards & mirrored on the inside cover.

I wouldn't *worry* about it. It is amazing, isn't it!?

Yeah, my dd has the same intension. she started to spell words backward. She feels that's fun and nobody else in the classroom can do it. Glad to see so many kids have the intension at the same age. amazing!

My 5 year old writes her name backwards and my 6 year old writes half her letters backwards, but my 6 year old does it more for attention.

A good friend of mine did that when he was about 5, I think. He could write his name, and he could write the mirror image of his name, and he couldn't not tell which one was supposed to be right.

I asked him if he ever received any special services for that. He said, "We didn't have any of this identifying people nonsense in my day. The teacher just yelled at you, and eventually, you got it right."

He grew up to be a fairly successful director of video and film in Asia.

I read somewhere that word/letter reversal was common/normal through 2nd grade.

My dd did this too when she was 4-5yo. She thought it was fun. She wrote normally and mirror image so I never worried about it. It was a pretty cool trick.

Just last night my 3 year old wrote his name backwards in a perfect mirror image of the way he usually writes it.

And my 5 year old is suddenly writing some letters and numbers backwards too (but he is having other complicating issues at the same time).

Esp with Aiden (5) we have started wondering about issues. Even though its still age appropriate, we worry more because he has been able to write it properly for so long. but I have decided that he may just need the freedom right now to do it his own way as a way to help him feel more in control of what he is able to do

AWESOME to read about other kids doing it too though - now I can really stop worrying about it

Our son also did mirror writing at a very early age. It alarmed us and then we learned about Leonardo D. He is fine now: three years later! But, he laughs and enjoys reading backwards at times.

I know this is an old thread, but I just Googled 'ability to write backwards gifted', and I found this thread and had to share. I also used to write backwards for fun all the time when I was in school. I remember in one of my high school classes we had homework that we would self check the next day. One day the teacher said to get out our work and pass it to the person behind us to check. Well, he couldn't read it and told the teacher who told me to please write normally from now on.

I can write backwards, though my cursive is prettier if I write it with my nondominant hand. My biggest problem is remembering which way is backwards if I try to write that way - it helps if I'm looking at other writing in a mirror or from the back of the paper at the same time. This wasn't necessary when I was 10 or so, I remember playing with writing direction a lot when I was bored with the concept of classwork in 5th grade.

I've always been able to read any which way as easily as forward and right side up. Somehow this freaked teachers out who already knew I was 4-5 years advanced for age. It's like I suddenly went from advanced angel to diabolical devil child, because I had a skill they hadn't managed by adulthood or even imagined existed.

My 4 year old wrote his name backwards in preschool. The teacher told me that she considered him to be very smart because it is not easy to do it. I have since seen him write with both hands as well as write mirror images of words and sentences backwards. He still has letter reversals at 6 years old, so I thought this ability was what was making him reverse letters while writing normally.
And my DS can read a book by holding it upside down. Nobody believes this if I tell them (including the pediatrician!).

My mom can write backwards and upside down in beautiful cursive. DD6 can also write backwards and upside down but not in cursive. (She also practices her spelling words by spelling them backwards )
DD11 can also do this, as well as read upside down, which I do a lot as a teacher and it floors my students when I do it in front of them. They then proceed to try it and they can't. I find it amazing that it is not an easy thing for most people to do.

Haha - now 2 years later I can again report that my now 3 year old today wrote his name backwards in perfect mirror image - "just for funnies mommy" and my now 5 year old (THEN 3 year old in my quoted post) does it only when he is bored. And my now 7 year old (then 5 year old) only does it when he is actually using a mirror to try write by looking into the mirror.

So not sure how rare this is - all three of my boys have done it. (my anecdata)

I have always written mirror image with my left hand and regular with my right hand and I can do this simultaneously. It has always been natural. It started as a child who tried to write with my left hand instead of my right, but just started writing back words. It's funny to get reactions as people think I am anywhere from evil to weird and strange. I don't know how else my brain is different other than I am rather intuitive.

Leonardo da Vinci wrote his notes in mirror style. When I remembered that, I stopped worrying about DD6 writing that way most of the time ;-)