Have you ever wondered why the metro slots for tokens and cards are always on the right side of the turnstile? Under the right-handers "very sharp" very many things - from scissors to computer mice, from writing in notebooks to machines in factories. Some firms, however, produce special goods for left-handers (mainly stationery, work tools and household appliances). But such exceptions so far. The older our beloved lion, the more he has to adapt to more things in the right-handed world. In the kindergarten the question is not so acute. But at school there are problems - as foreseen by parents, and absolutely unexpected for them. After all, there are not always taken into account the peculiarities of the development of left-handed children. What are they?
There are things that are initially given to southpaws more difficult than their right-handed peers.
* Many left-handed people are slowly forming a phonemic hearing (the ability to distinguish different sounds) and the ability to articulate. Therefore, they can speak later than their peers, but already with rather long and complex phrases. The only thing that remains is to be amazed at their "adult" speech. As one mother told, her daughter was silent for almost two years. On the horizon "loomed" an unpleasant diagnosis - "delayed speech development." And suddenly, going out into the street in the morning, the girl made a hilarious squeamish mug and uttered: "Phew, how wet is it!" After that, only the opposite problems arose between the parents - sometimes it was impossible to calm the "talking" child.
* The lefthande's complex relations are combined with space and time. Even at the younger school age, he can sometimes doubt what his right hand is and what his left. Left-handed children often have abnormalities or deficiencies in the development of spatial perception at the visual level, visual memory, motor coordination. For example, the road in unfamiliar places leshonok remembers with great difficulty.
* Sometimes it's difficult for a left-handed child to determine the time by the clock with the arrows. He confuses the hour and minute hands, perceives them in a mirror image or biased.
* Sometimes such children have delayed the development of such an important skill as the formation of rows of words, signs, images, objects. They find it difficult to remember the mutual arrangement of something in space, it is difficult to assemble a mosaic, lay out the pattern in a certain direction. It would seem that such features can prevent the left-hander from navigating and successfully operating in the surrounding world. But nature is fair in its own way. And all these difficulties, she compensates with a vengeance! After all, it has long been proven that lefties are amazing people. The left-hander always devises, and even unimaginable (for others), his way of building and capturing the world of right-handed people ... All without exception, left-wing children know how to control the flow of their mental activity, almost magically. Often they achieve the desired results, as it were, in an "indirect" way, finding sometimes absolutely inconceivable accessible and inaccessible means. A small four-year-old left-hander easily retells entire pages of the "book" that he reads, and then it turns out that he does not know any of the letters. So who taught him this way of reading? Who taught the child in six years to solve digital problems of considerable difficulty, while he changed and rewrote the writing of similar figures among themselves? Took off the top row from the bottom row, and the word "task" itself was called "chdz", that is, a mirror method, skipping all the vowels? For every reasonable adult for many centuries it was clear that time is a clock hanging on the wall. But to an eternal child, like all geniuses, A. Einstein suddenly saw this as an absolutely incorrect formulation of the question. The result is known to all of us. Although, most likely, he sometimes used the clock and for his intended purpose.
Yes, building up verbal ranks and memorizing unrelated things and left-handed concepts are more difficult than right-handed peers. But if he can somehow "mark" them in his mind, find logical connections and associations, he remembers easily and in large volume. And what is the non-standard leftist view of the world, what is the ability to find logical and imaginative connections, what is the desire for a new and original ... According to recent studies, left-handed graduates of higher educational institutions earn 13-21% more than their right-handed colleagues. In addition, as researchers suggest, lefties are very many among the figures of various arts. For example, among artists, musicians, as well as some categories of athletes. In some sports, the left-hander is literally "in weight of gold." For example, in tennis, fencing, boxing, most martial arts, they are considered the most dangerous and "unpredictable" opponents. Not for nothing 40% of boxing champions are left-handed.
"Left Hand" in school and at home.
In primary school, left-handed children often encounter difficulties. Do not be scared! This applies not only to your child, but also to the majority of left-handed people. Usually, the fourth grade is smoothed out to the class, and the left-hander is normally "poured" into the educational process. But in this he needs help.
In the education and training of the left-hander, one must always remember about his heightened emotionality and vulnerability. Levshonok is extremely sensitive to external evaluation. He is even more than an ordinary child, he needs acceptance, approval, respect, sympathy. Do not be lazy to praise him for a job well done! The task of parents is to develop in it optimism, self-confidence, an active attitude to life. Psychic processes take a lot of energy from lefties. The result is rapid fatigue and exhaustion of the nervous system. Therefore, make sure that the student is observing the constant regime of the day and not overworked.
Lies are slower than right-handed peers, simple skills are formed that allow us to perform some familiar actions automatically, without thinking. A left-handed child is more difficult to force something to do according to the rules, according to the established pattern. For example, brushing your teeth at night, changing clothes, coming from the street, etc. How here to act?
Do not be angry and nervous. But do not wait for the child to learn (just looking at you) to sew with a needle, use scissors, tie laces, make a bed, draw, write letters. Left-handed is difficult to learn some skills "vpoglyadku." He can not, looking at you, understand how it's all the same done. He needs the movements, the mutual arrangement of hands, fingers, and heads to "remember" his whole body. It is better to take his hands in his and several times with him to do the right action. If the letter or digit is not remembered - let's not just try to draw it, looking at the pattern, and several times around the stencil or under a carbon paper. And then he admires the neat, beautiful drawing.
Parent, be ready!
School difficulties relate more often to learning writing and counting. The fact is that the basis for primary skills here is visual perception. And it, as we remember, for left-handers "limps".
1. "In which direction is the tail?" The child confuses similar letters and figures (for example, "d" and "b": one has a "tail" on top and the other has a bottom), adds extra elements or vice versa, does not append elements letters and numbers. "Mirror" writing letters, numbers and graphic elements occurs in 85% of the first-lef-lefthanders. However, do not worry: most right-handed children between the ages of three and seven are also sometimes writing some letters in a mirror image. This is the usual stage of mastering a letter. "Normally," according to observations of psychologists, such errors completely disappear after 10 years.
How to help. The southpaw thinks with emotions and whole images. To remember something, he needs a figurative "binding", an association. A classic example: "u" d "tail down, like a woodpecker, and" b "- up, like a squirrel."
2. The order of letters. Sometimes (especially in a hurry) the left-hander can change places or skip letters in the word. From the "cow" he at best gets a "carpet" ... Some lefties have very persistent dysgraphic errors. Children get confused in the order of letters, forget to leave gaps between words. It is connected with the same undeveloped ability to form series, to distinguish sounds and their sequence.
How to help. Often lay out with your preschooler patterns from various elements or mosaic. Arrange the elements strictly from left to right. First fold the top row, and then, as it were, "go to" the line below. Conduct "visual dictations" with the child. To do this, you can use two identical sets of geometric shapes - squares, triangles, diamonds and circles, cut from a multi-colored cardboard. A series is laid out from one set. The child looks at it and lists it aloud from left to right, memorizing the sequence: "Blue square, red triangle, yellow circle", etc. The sample is closed, and the child from memory reproduces it, laying out the figures from the second set. Then you should check the correctness of the performance and "reward" for a good result with a small prize. Such trainings begin with very short rows of 3-4 figures, and then their length increases. It will be useful to suggest a child left-handed to compose a story on a series of plot pictures, again, observing the direction from left to right. To do this, you can use children's comics, if in them the drawings are located exactly in this order. Good results give early learning to read. If a child reads a lot, he simply visually remembers the "appearance" of words.
3. This awful handwriting. The big, sprawled, uneven letters slope in different directions? Writes slowly and ugly? But there's nothing you can do about it - it's not from inattention and lack of effort. The left-hander sometimes applies more effort to writing down than his right-handed peer, and the result is worse. For some left-handers, the handwriting level for the senior classes is equalized, and for some, it remains so for life.
How to help. It is worth talking to the teacher, explaining that the cause of problems with styling is the left-handedness of the child, not his inattention and laziness. It is necessary to remove psychological pressure in the school so that your kid does not feel "behind", "worse" than the other students because of poor handwriting. And in fact, in the era of computerization, the skills of speed dialing and finding the right information on the Internet are more important.
Teacher for a note.
When the left-handed child is working at the table - the light source should be on the right side. While sitting in the classroom, it is better for the teacher to plant a left-hander so that the board is on his right. The pose at the desk is standard, but a little forward should be not the right, but the left shoulder. The notebook or sheet of paper should lie so that the top right corner lies with a slant to the right, and the upper left corner is located opposite the chest. If the left-hander is sitting at the desk with the right-handed child, it is better to put him on the left, and right-hander - on the right, so that they do not interfere with each other, facing elbows.