Letter Reversals

It is common for children under the age of seven to confuse ’b’s and ‘d’s, ‘p’s and ‘q’s and even ‘m’s for ‘w’s.  This is known as letter reversal and it doesn’t mean that your child is dyslexic. So why do early readers often mistake these letters? It’s probably because b, d, p and q are essentially the same character just mirrored on one or both axises. This is why letter reversal is also called mirror writing. Inexperienced readers may not actually understand that these are different characters in the same way that when someone shows you an upside down picture you can still see people in it.

Most children tend to outgrow letter reversals as they get stronger at reading. Through discovery and building phonics skills they will find that these are actually different characters with different sounds. As experienced readers we take for granted much of this right up until we try to figure out if the character in the middle of that jumble of letters and numbers is the letter O or the number 0.

But what if you child isn’t outgrowing it on their own or even if you want the help them along in their reading quest. Luckily there are things we can do to help struggling readers minding their ‘b’s, ‘d’s, ‘p’s and ‘q’s. First work with one letter at a time. Start with ‘b’ as it is first in the alphabet, ‘b’ comes before ‘d’.  When focussing on a letter engage more than one of your child’s senses. They could trace the letter on a piece of paper or a touch screen while sounding out the sound of the letter. This is called multi sensory learning. Don’t introduce the next letter until they have a good grasp of the previous one. Once they know the difference between ‘b’ and ‘d’ then move on to others like ‘p’ and ‘q’. Do the same with numbers since some kids might confuse ‘b’ and ‘6’; or ‘p’, ‘q’ and ‘9’.

Many people think that letter reversal is a sign of dyslexia, but actually it is quite common in beginning readers. Through exercises and practice most people overcome letter reversal. In fact there is no downside to grabbing some multi sensory activities to help any new readers.  If letter reversal continues it could be a sign of something more than just letter reversals.  If a child is in late primary school and still mixing ‘b’s and ‘d’s there may be some visual discrimination issues. If it turns out the reader does have a language or visual processing difficulty then it is best to be dealt with by a specialist, sooner than later.