Assisting Students Who Struggle With Reversals

One of the biggest questions that I get asked from parents and educators is about the link between reversals and dyslexia. 

Dyslexia is not a problem with vision. Many children reverse letters as they begin to learn to read and write. Some children may have vision issues as well, such as convergence insufficiency, but vision problems are not the primary cause of dyslexia and therefore treating dyslexia through approaches like colored lenses and eye exercises are not appropriate ways to treat dyslexia. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the Council on Children with Disabilities, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology published a joint statement summarizing what is currently known about visual problems and dyslexia. The statement also covers what treatments are and are not recommended when diagnosing and treating vision problems, learning disabilities, and dyslexia.

You can read the full joint statement HERE.

Now, you may be wondering why some children struggle with reversals and what we can do with our instruction to assist them? This post will address those questions. 

Our brains are programmed to speak, see, and think, but not read. Amazingly, our brain can rearrange and create neural pathways to unlock the code and connect reading to the words written on a page. This understanding is key for educators so that we can match our instructional practices to what we know about how the brain learns and important for those with dyslexia to better understand how their brain organizes and processes information. 

Our brain is made up of two hemispheres; regions in the left hemisphere support reading. These are the most active regions of the brain during reading, the ones that perform specific jobs in concert to others for reading to occur. 

As you can see, there is no specific reading lobe! No single part of the brain is dedicated to reading. Reading relies on the brain systems used for spoken language. 

The occipital lobe is responsible for vision. There is a small region of the visual cortex that becomes activated in the brain of readers. This is referred to as the word form area, or as Dr. Stanislas Dehaene refers to as the "letterbox", and is responsible for our visual knowledge of letters. You can find Dr. Dehaene's work in books, videos, and many other researchers' work. 

What does this mean for reversals?

When we see a pair of scissors, it remains scissors no matter the positioning. Orientation has no impact. However, with letters, there is a specific symbol orientation that represents a sound or sounds within our language. 

When introducing letters to students, they have to unlearn this mirror imaging ability built into our brains. When young readers misread saw for was or b for d, they are still in the process of unlearning this. 

What instruction can we implement to assist students with reversals?  

• Explicitly teach handwriting formation. See the video above 👆. 

When students learn to write individual letters, they develop hand movement (graphomotor) and letter knowledge (orthographic) skills. 

Letters are the anchors for the sounds within our spoken language. We want to ensure that we provide the proper instruction and ample practice for students to become automatic with letter writing. Some ways that we can do this is by using consistent verbal cues, multi-sensory practice, and most importantly providing immediate corrective feedback. If students are practicing improper letter formations, it will take much longer to rewrite those circuitry systems. It is better to take the time and teach letter formation correctly from the start. 

• Link speech to print 

Mouth formation cues are important for anchoring sounds to letter representations, especially for struggling readers. 

We can use this knowledge to link to handwriting too! How?

This is especially helpful for the letters b and d. Use a mirror to have the students look at their mouth as they produce /b/. Have them note that their lips are pushed together in a straight line. Note for the students that we begin writing the letter b with a straight line. Use this same strategy for the letter d. Here our mouths are open with the tongue and teeth blocking the air, but they will note that their mouths are somewhat rounded like the letter d. 

• Bring the image into the letter to aid in identification, reading, and writing. 

I have found that my students who struggle with reversals are gaining automaticity by focusing on mouth formation and the keyword embedded within the letter. 

• Provide ample practice to connect to reading and writing. 

For b/d reversals, I have them hyper-focus on the letter b because the keyword "bat" is easily embedded into the letterform. The mouth formation clearly links, and we can draw/highlight the straight line within our reading when we get confused.

These three strategies provide a multi-sensory approach that aids my students in linking speech to print and assisting their working memory. 

In addition to writing practice, we practice these common reversal pairs focusing on automaticity for both letter identification and sound production. 

Activities For Reversals

Click on each image for some helpful games + activities:

 Join The Dyslexia Classroom's free resource library community for resources to help you support your students. Join HERE! 

I hope this post helps you understand the importance of connecting handwriting formation with reading and spelling to help students who struggle with reversals and create the necessary connections. Once we understand that our brains were not designed for reading, we can use our instructional practices to provide proper instruction and ample practice for handwriting and mouth formation to assist these students. 

Have a great week!

Casey