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Handwriting Strategies for Lefties

Tags

ELA: Writing K-8 Strategy

Skills

Fine Motor Skills

Handwriting Strategies for Lefties

If your student is left-handed

How To Apply It!

  1. Since learning environments are still very much geared toward the right-handed student, these strategies can help your left-handed student to be more comfortable and have neater handwriting.
  2. At the point when your child has truly developed left-handed dominance, encourage your child to inform adults, as appropriately needed, that he is left-handed. This might include coaches, the art teacher, or a camp counselor.
  3. Encourage your student to sit at the left edge of a table to minimize bumping elbows when working and at mealtimes.
  4. Teach students to use a tripod grasp about 1-1.5 inches above the bottom of the pencil. Moving the grasp a little higher will help the student see her writing and minimize the hooked wrist position that lefties often assume. This technique also will reduce smudging.
  5. Tilt the student's paper so the lower right corner is pointing to his belly button, upper left corner pointed up, to reduce the hook position and avoid smudging.
  6. During handwriting practice to copy letters and words, place the model letter or word on the right side. Usually the models are on the left and the student must lift his arm to see it.
  7. Provide lefty scissors for your student -- if the student does indeed cut "lefty". Some left-handed writers find cutting with the right hand easier, so the student will need to experiment to decide.
  8. When you are introducing various sports to your child, do not assume that your child will bat, throw a ball or swing a racket left-handed. Just like scissor use, allow the child to try both sides to feel what works best.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

Lefties quite literally come at the world from a different angle. If they do not receive the appropriate supports, it could affect the neatness of their writing, their self-confidence and their motor skill development. Keep in mind that hand dominance does not fully develop until five or six years old. While a child who writes with the right hand tends to do everything with the right hand, it is common for children who write with the left hand to do varying activities such as throwing or eating with the right hand.