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While doing the phonics lessons with my dd, I've noticed that she tends to read her letters from right to left instead of left to right. She recognizes the letters, gets the individual letter sounds, but if we are looking at "am", she says "ma" instead of "aaammm".

She is doing with this with all the sound combos that we are learning.

Today while we were reading a book (just for fun), I was pointing to a few words and asking what the letters in the word are. (It was Green Eggs and Ham). I pointed to "Sam". She told me the letters are "M...A....S".

I'm trying to explain that we read left to right (and yes she does know left from right), but she keeps doing it.

Sooooooo, my question is have any of you experienced this? If so, how did you eventually work it out? Any advice?

My dd had a slight problem with this...I never really found out exactly why it was a problem, except that she did have a vision problem, undiagnosed, when she first began learning letters and sounds. We just really focused on getting her reading; sight words, reading to her a lot, her reading to me, and copywork also helped a great deal...something about seeing the words and writing them out I guess. Actually, I remember writing out the words and definitions for my vocab words while in 12th grade so I could remember them more easily for tests. Others will probably have better advice than me, this was just what we did, and now she reads on a mid-third-grade level. Her scores in reading and spelling were still a bit low on her SAT, but I knew this already. She's not quite where we'd like her to be, but she's still playing catch-up from not being able to read when she 'should' have been able to. I think if you work with your dd and pay close attention you'll know if you need to do anything more than just practice. HTH

Could she be dyslexic? My husband is dyslexic and he sees letters in reverse order and even writes words that way sometimes. He can't even proofread his own writing because he reads it back the correct way even though the letters are reversed. You could probably have her tested somewhere if you think that might be an issue.

I would definitely check out the vision and keep tracking it. But I think also five is young and sometimes they do these things that makes us hold our breath and wonder if there is something wrong. I have seen this come up with more than one child of mine and seen it resolved. It came up in my dd with CP and my dd who has absolutely no special needs and is quite bright but very wiggly(both have easily solved this issue over time). I would just try to make which way you read a game. Maybe do something like have a worm attached to a sting that is attached to an apple. Let the worm get closer to the apple as they go from left to right until the worm get to eat it. Or you could do a bee to a flower and you could say remember the bee always flies to the flower type thing and show the direction of that as left to right. Just little games to get the pattern in their mind of which way they go.

I would check vision but I would not look at it at this point as just a little thing you need to retrain. It should fix itself with your help fairly quickly and may have little times they forget here and there but be moving toward less. If it is not and other things seem to indicate there is something more I would say get it checked out. I think chances are it is nothing at this age. But the disclaimer is I am not an expert just a mom.

Kelly,

The ladies are giving you wonderful advice! I'll just pop-in to say that with little ones this age, they can do all sorts of things that don't seem to make sense to us when learning to read. Much of it has to do with forming correct habits.

One way to help with this particular issue is to write the words you'd like her to read on a markerboard or paper starting with the first letter of the word and adding one letter at a time to it, until she's read the whole word. This way, she must read the sounds in order as you add them until she gets to the end. Just use the words from your phonics program in this manner. Erase the word once she's read it, and then do the next one, adding one letter at a time.

In her books, you can also cover all but the first letter of the word, and then slide your finger to the right to reveal the letters one at a time while she's sounding it out.

Those two things really help with the left to right habit of reading.

We've had to do this with our sons too!

Blessings,
Carrie

you can work on her eye-tracking by doing a simple exercise.

Hold a pencil in front of her at eye level. Move it slowly from her left to right. Have her watch it with her eyes, and not move her head. Lower it when you reach the right. Then begin again. Do it for a few minutes each day.

She probably just needs help with left-right tracking. You could do a google search and probalby find lots of ideas.

There is a book called "The Out-of-Sync Child" by Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A. That may explain some of your tracking issues. I took my dd to a behavioral optomitrist, that tests how the eyes track together, it is called a binocular exam. It is fairly new technology in the optometry field and my nephew is doing vision therapy because his eyes turn in. Reading problems and delayed learning is an indication of this. Some grow out of it, some need help to grow out of it. My understanding is the earlier you work with it the better it is for the child in later years for learning. Of course, every situation is uniquely different. The book is actually about sensory processing but it covers a vast range of visual motor along with the rest of the senses too. My dd eyes tend to turn out, but with glasses it has helped her to over compesate and without any other help she is reading very well. There is alot of activities that you can do to help them learn and read better and you can find it in the book.

HTH
Lisa E