My 4 year old has been doing a few things that have made me start to wonder about dyslexia. He knows all his letters and can recognize and draw them, but when he writes his name or tries to write a word we spell for him, he doesn't write the letters in a row. Instead, he will put the letters all over the page in a totally random order. Even if we write down a word for him to copy, he doesn't write it left to right the way he sees us do it.
What really got my attention was yesterday, I was doing a number puzzle with him, and he kept mixing up numbers like 12 with 21. He told me they were the same. I pointed out that on the 12, the 1 was in front of the 2, and on 21, the two was in front of the 1, and he just gave me a blank stare and insisted that they were the same.
I'm sure these could just be typical preschool behaviors, but it's really got me thinking. I did a little research and there's not much helpful information I've found. One thing that kept coming up was delays in speech, and my son didn't talk until he was almost 3 years old. We had him tested around 2 1/2 years old and they didn't find any physical problems. He's a very smart kid, good with fine motor skills, loves to be read to. But he does have problems socializing with other kids. His preschool teacher said academically he's ready for kindergarten but socially he needs time.
Did your child have these behaviors and grow out of them, or are these very early signs we should keep an eye on? Should we get him tested or wait til he's older? Thanks for your input!
Very common to mix up letters/numbers, write backwards, etc. up through about second grade. I don't think they will even test for dyslexia until about 9 years old because this is something a lot of kids just do and grow out of.
Don't worry!!!
This is TOTALLY common in young children...PLEASE do not worry!! Even children who are school aged can regularly mix up 12 and 21, or 14 and 41...think about it. When you hear "FOUR-teen" your natural instinct is to write a four. And for a four year old? Most of them, unless they are advanced in spatial relationships and critical thinking, don't really understand the difference between 12 and 21. Not until they learn about place value and base 10 do they really understand the concept...until then, it's just rote memorization.
He's okay!!! :)
Totally normal. After a while, it "clicks" and they get the order, etc....
My son used to freak me out by doing mirror writing, which I learned, is also normal...
Maybe just something to keep an eye on.
It doesn't hurt to bring these things up. You could get a private assessment with a specialist (not a pediatrician) But, it is very likely, you'll be told to wait until he's a little older for assessment for something like dyslexia, since it isn't uncommon for children this age to reverse letters etc.
If however, you are looking for more information on the topic, check out the articles archived on this site:
My guess is that this is totally normal and it's too soon to really worry about anything yet. Number reversal is really common, even as they get a little older. My daughter is 4 and sometimes she writes out her name, but if she runs out of room on the paper, the rest of the letters will end up wherever she decides to put them. I think kids at that age don't realize that letters or numbers have to be in a certain order and if they are in a different order, it will have a totally different meaning. I was helping out in my daughter's preschool class the other day and one little boy wanted to write STOP on a piece of paper. When I told him the letters, he wrote it right to left, so he spelled POTS instead. I corrected him and reminded him that we write left to right. At this age, they cannot always remember which is which, so it's easy to get things mixed up.
If you can do a "junior kindergarten" class next year instead of full-on kindergarten, you might want to consider that. Hopefully he would get more out of it than just another year of preschool and will be better prepared for K the following year.
He should be seeing an eye doc for a regular yearly check up at this age so bring it up with the eye doc. Or if he hasn't gone yet make an appointment with one. Ours is wonderful, he has animals and all kinds of other symbols for the little kids to say instead of trying to tell him what letter it is. The kids enjoy going.
My son was a late talker and he was doing the same types of things in pre-school and kindergarten. He was still confusing 12 and 21 in kindergarten, would write his sentences backwards and confuse his b and d. He is in 2nd grade now and doing fine, and his reading is on par with the rest of the class. His kindergarten teacher said that some of the kids will still confuse the b and d and 12 and 21 up until 3rd grade.
This is normal. My daughter did the same thing. She was almost 5 when she got the concept of work and number order. I wouldn't worry about it. When he gets to Kindergarten his teacher will let you know if there is a problem. 12 and 21 are the same to him because they both are using the same numbers. He will get it.
I just attended a parent education class at my girls' preschool last night and this is exactly one of the behaviors they highlighted as normal for preschool. They said that as kids are learning letters and numbers, they're also learning what order things go in and sometimes it's too much to keep straight. So you might see a child writing all their letters backwards. Or writing the letters correctly but writing the word from right to left (one of my daughters does this). Or, a child might put letters everywhere and still call it a word. Totally normal. Apparently the correct order of things just clicks one day and they understand, but for some kids that's not until 5 or 6.
Of course, if you're worried, talk to your son's pediatrician... but according to my kids' (awesome) school, it's absolutely normal.
