Reading Upside Down & Backwards
Learning to Read and How Human Brains 'See'
The lens of our eyes turns the world upside-down and backwards onto our retinas. Learning to read English first requires learning to see right-side up and frontwards
"My eldest son's earliest writings were (almost) always reversed. And sometimes upside down too," Calgary-based homeschooling mother of boys, Cindy Bablitz responded online to a conversation about teaching children to read.
"I did some research too and learned: This [understanding the left to right flow of the English language] is a learned technique. Nothing in our brain is built-in to tell us that. Old Hebrew writing was from right to left, and Japanese Kanji may be either vertical, horizontal, right to left, or left to right, depending on its use ... It is normal for a young child to reverse letters and words in his first efforts to write. ... In 1975 the Michigan Reading clinic reportedly examined over three thousand allegedly dyslexic children and found only two truly dyslexic and unable to learn to read. Many labelled dyslexic by schools have recovered nicely when brought home and taught by their parents."
Upside Down & BackwardsHuman vision relies on the brain translating the light distorted by lenses and retinas, and this translation must be learned. The earliest visual task for children is learning to focus, followed by learning to recognize shape, orientation, depth perception and colour. Everything we see starts out upside down and backwards and requires comprehension to make sense. While it feels natural to read print right-side up and forward, it is familiarity, not natural. As Bablitz explains:
"Our developed, learned ability to report back data apparently right side up and "correctly" left to right, is the result of neurological pathways we've established between our left and right hemispheres of the brain. Until our neurons have done their traveling, any effort of any ostensibly well-meaning teacher to insist that a child not reverse and upside down his writing is wasting effort like unto insisting a six month old baby stop being so lazy and step up and walk."
Natural Language LearningOne fact of human learning is that people will learn what they associate with 'normal.' When a family uses written language for their own purposes -- reading the paper, having magazine subscriptions, writing reminders and grocery lists, personal-interest study, using the library, talking about books and articles, keeping diaries or journals, reading signs and labels, et cetera -- the children will learn the correct orientation for writing from simple familiarity.
Just as children learn which way gravity works, they will readily (in their own time, according to their neurological development and personal interest) pick up how letters are correctly formed in English.
