I’m a mom of two left-handed sons, so I’m always on the lookout for simple tricks that will help them get along in our right-handed world. From a young age lefties get pretty good at adapting, but especially for kiddos just learning to write, it makes sense to give them a few strategies to make life easier. If you work with little lefties at home or at school, these five tips might come in handy for you as well.
- Binder clips and spirals get in the way for everyone, but especially for left-handed writers. Consider binding journals on the top, turning spiral notebooks so the spirals are on top, or if you only write on one side of spiral notebooks, allow students to write on the left page instead of the right page.
- When teaching young lefties to cut, encourage them to learn to hold scissors steady in their right hand and move the paper with their left. Left-handed scissors are available but they’re not very common in “real life.” In the long run learning this adaptation from the beginning is probably easier.
- Apparently ball point ink works backwards for lefties because it’s more effective with the pulling motion, and lefties push the pen more than they pull. If you’re using pens, lefties prefer quick-drying felt tips over goopy ball points. (Since their hands have to drag through the ink.)
- Encourage lefties to position their paper slightly to the left of the center of their bodies and tilt the top to the right. So their arm lines up parallel to the side of the paper. (Erasers should be pointed back, toward the writer to prevent the common lefty wrist hook.)
- And of course, speaking of elbows, a seat on the left is always appreciated to avoid crashing into the righty next door.
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Top Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash