You have been directed to this information because a child you are working with is reversing some letters or numbers.
Letter reversals, when children write letters backward or upside down, can be common up until the age of 7 years. It is often called mirror writing.
If you have used these techniques and not seen improvement after 6 months, please consider contacting the Children and Young People’s Therapy Service.
What you may see
The numerals most often reversed are 2, 3, 5, 7 and 6 for 9. Frequent letter reversals include lower case b, d, s, c and z. The letters w and m are also sometimes swapped top-to-bottom.
Strategies and advice
- It is important to learn letters as movements rather than as visual shapes. This gives children a plan for remembering tricky letters.
- Use sensory and tactile activities. Get the child to write and trace their reversed letters and numbers on a blackboard, fine sandpaper or in playdough or putty. Make sure they are using the correct stroke when tracing.
- Learning cursive writing can sometimes stop letter reversals because the letters are connected and lead into one another.
- Pair directional cues with verbal ones. For example, ‘d’ faces the diamond (drawn on the left upper corner of each page) and ‘p’ and ‘b’ face the pink ball (drawn on the upper right corner).
Regular practice is important to over learn new movements. Use starting points and arrows to show direction of movement.
Other tips use pictures to help tell letters apart:
- Lower case ‘b’ is like the ‘B’ only without the top circle.
- To remember ‘d’ – ‘c’ comes first then add a line to make ‘d.’
- With palms facing the chest and thumbs up, the child makes two fists. The left hand makes a ‘b’ and the right hand makes a ‘d’.
- When writing capital letters like B, D, F, K, L, P, R – draw the vertical line first and then add lines or curves to the right side.
- Make a special cue card for each child to keep at their desk with their common reversals.
Writing on a vertical surface can also help some children with directionality, especially when first learning to write. With a vertical orientation, ‘up’ and ‘down’ refer to hand movements the child actually performs.
Last reviewed September 2025