Are you a lefty or a righty?

<--- righty for everything except dribbling a basketball and er, 'personal care' (i broke my R arm when i was 9 when we were learning basketball in PE and had to learn to do a couple of things w/ L).

my 8-y.o. cousin is a source of interest and concern for myself and the rest of my family: he's a natural lefty, but they taught him to write right-handed. he's a little sports stud (my ex got his baseball hooks in him, wants to turn him into the next mickey mantle) and has fantastic eye-hand coordination, bats lefty, hits well, plays soccer too. he doesn't seem to be doing well in school. :frown: doesn't like it, doesn't like to read, seems dyslexic, has difficulty with math, too. he's working with a tutor a couple of days a week. i'm wondering if there is any correlation between left-handedness and dyslexia...

there is, lefthandedness and ambidextrousness are more common in dyslexic people, and there's several different theories in neurobiology about why this is so. It seems to be related to the way both hemispheres of the brain work together. If he hasn't already been tested for dyslexia, he should be, given what you've written. And his school should let him write in his left hand if that's easier for him.

check what method the school is using to teach him reading. a pure phonics approach is usually better as dyslexic people tend to have a poor visual memory, so memorising words by what they look like (i.e. the sight words method) is usually a recipe for failure, i.e. they learn a certain number of sight words, then start getting ones that look similar confused. Phonics relies much less on visual memory and much more on learning how to read through the whole word, sound it out and blend the sounds. Also, dyslexic kids tend to have erratic eye movements that make reading very difficult... phonics (i.e. reading through the word from left to right) helps to train the eyes to move the right way. This approach helped me a lot and I've also worked with dyslexic kids to teach them literacy, and found phonics extremely beneficial for them as well. Note: of course there are many different factors involved so this may not be the case for every dyslexic child.

i'm wondering if there is any correlation between left-handedness and dyslexia...

there is, lefthandedness and ambidextrousness are more common in dyslexic people...

neandermagnon FTW! that's exactly what i was looking for, TYVM :flowerforyou: i was taught phonics 20+ yrs ago in my small (somewhat progressive) private school and it wasn't until much later i learned that not everyone is taught to read this way. i feel so lucky, and i'm a righty-reader.

Ambidextrous and was forced to use my right hand at Catholic school when I was a child because "it was wrong".
I shall conquer my true power soon enough! I don't even care if I leave an ink trail.

My left arm is just decoration. I barely ever use it.

Ambidextrous -- write with my right and do everything else with left. .. Was actually forced to write with the right hand as a child .

I'm left-handed but I use right-handed scissors. I used to eat with my knife in my left hand and fork in my right when I was a child, but my parents didn't think it was 'proper' and so I had to get used to using them the other way round.

I think every lefty does this.

Ugh... I wish... I remember being in school and having "left handed scissors". Yeah, they sucked. I still use right handed scissors with my left hand. I did spend extra money on a pair of really nice left handed sewing shears. Totally worth it

I'm officially right-handed, but I tried to make myself left-handed once, so I do a lot of things with my left hand. I drive almost exclusively with my left hand. I tend to reach for things with my left hand. And I'm not even sure I'm capable of opening a jar with my right hand because it just feels weird.

Righty for writing, catching and batting. But I snowboard with my left foot as my lead foot and I've had to become nearly ambidextrous for various tasks I perform at work.

I'm a lefty for just about everything: writing, eating, throwing, golfing, batting, shooting, fishing, archery smoking, drinking, *cough, cough* handjobs *cough, cough*. I played soccer for 8 years and was even left-footed.

Only activity in which I've ever noticed my right to be dominant is shooting pool.

Ambidextrous -- write with my right and do everything else with left. .. Was actually forced to write with the right hand as a child .

I feel your pain

I was told off for writing with my left hand as a kid as well. I thought i was a weird exception... looks like I'm not. :frown: