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Features of teaching writing to left-handed children. Left-handed child in elementary school

Left-handed children are a completely special group of children. It has been established that all properties of the hand are determined by the complex physiological structure of the distribution of functions between the right and left hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. The actions of each hand are regulated mainly by the opposite hemisphere: in right-handed people - the left, and in left-handed people - the right.

During the development of the human brain, a division of functions occurs between the left and right hemispheres. The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for specific figurative activity (recognition of objects by smell, color and visual perception). And the left hemisphere is responsible for speech functions, reading, writing, as well as mathematical, logical and analytical thinking. That is why the left hemisphere is called dominant or predominant.

Scientists have identified several causes of left-handedness in children (although they are not completely proven and controversial):

Birth stress (the presence of at least 2 unfavorable factors, including low weight of the newborn, too fast or prolonged labor, the use of obstetric instruments, asphyxia in the newborn, etc.).

Peculiarities of upbringing (when adults put the spoon in the “correct” hand, they punish for manifestations of left-handedness).

It is transmitted genetically by inheritance, and this can happen through generations.

The most common is the so-called genetic left-handedness. To date, the exact mechanisms of transmission of this trait are not known, but it has been reliably established that left-handedness is 10-12 times more common in families in which at least one of the parents is left-handed. Genetic left-handers may not have any developmental disorders, then this is considered simply an individual peculiarity, a variant of normal development.

The second type is “compensatory” left-handedness, associated with some kind of brain damage, most often to the left hemisphere. Since the activity of the right hand is mainly regulated by the left hemisphere, in the event of any injury, illness, early stage development of the child, the right hemisphere can take over the corresponding functions. Thus, the left hand becomes the leading hand, that is, more active when performing everyday activities, and subsequently, most often, when writing. A child with disturbances in the activity of one of the cerebral hemispheres will almost certainly experience deviations in the development of speech, motor skills, etc. It should be noted that left-handedness in this case cannot be considered as the cause of these deviations. They, like left-handedness, are a consequence of the same reasons.

In addition to genetic left-handedness, there is also pathological and social left-handedness. While genetic left-handedness is inherited, pathological left-handedness may result from “minimal brain dysfunction” occurring either in utero or at birth. A high frequency of left-handedness is observed among patients with epilepsy, mental retardation, and schizophrenia.

Social left-handedness arises as a result of forced retraining.

In relation to the learning process, we can say that the right hemisphere provides creative thinking, orientation in space and sensory perception of the world, while the left is responsible for abstract thinking and the verbal-logical nature of the cognitive process. Despite the specialization of the cerebral hemispheres, it functions as a single whole due to interhemispheric interaction. It is known that the specialization of the cerebral hemispheres is innate. With the dominance of the left hemisphere, a person is characterized by a tendency to logical thinking and generalizations; right-hemisphere people are more emotional, with a developed imagination. Moreover, approximately half of humanity belongs to these two types, while the remaining part does not have a pronounced dominance of the hemispheres. Every adult has a preference (asymmetry) for one of two paired organs - arms and legs, hearing, vision.

A healthy individual may have no preference for only one or two paired organs, with the obligatory identical asymmetry of the others. Theoretically, right, left and mixed lateral profiles are distinguished, however, among them there are quite a few big number combinations. For children of primary school age, the situation is much more complicated, since their individual lateral profile can only be fully formed by the age of 9-10, since the maturation of brain structures is a long and uneven process.

In left-handed people, unlike right-handed people, the right hemisphere is dominant, and the left is subordinate. The right hemisphere contains devices associated with left hand and providing normal course speech and thought processes. When writing, the left hand makes movements that are symmetrical to the movements of the right hand, i.e. movements when writing from right to left.

Both hemispheres of the brain are involved in body movements. The left hemisphere controls right hand and foot. And the right one, respectively, with the left hand and foot. Therefore, in right-handed people, the left hemisphere is dominant, and the right hand is dominant. But sometimes, during the development of the brain, some changes occur, and the right hemisphere plays a dominant role. In this case, the left hand is the main one.

In fact, left-handers and right-handers differ from each other not only in what hand they write and hold a spoon. Left-handed people have much more pronounced concrete-figurative qualities. They are more impressionable, excitable, susceptible emotional outbursts and sudden changes in mood. This is why there are a lot of left-handed people among artists (actors, composers, poets and artists). But exact sciences, as a rule, are difficult for left-handed people.

It is believed that in professional sports, left-handers have much more advantages, given equal physical training. This is due to the fact that most opponents are right-handed and, accordingly, their left flank is less protected. This is why left-handed and left-footed football players, hockey players, basketball players and boxers are very highly valued.

It is known that the child’s body is very plastic, therefore, if a child has a dysfunction of the left hemisphere, then the right hemisphere can compensate for this disorder by taking over its functions. In this case, the left becomes the leading hand. Very often, such left-handedness is also called compensatory, given its mechanism. Therefore, if you do not retrain a left-handed child and do not repeatedly force the left hemisphere to perform those functions that it itself abandoned, then the child will not have any problems in learning. But if we still retrain a left-handed child to work with his right hand, that is, we force the left - defective, vulnerable hemisphere - to work, then we will create a whole range of problems. This is the second group of left-handed children.

Currently, there are several views on the natural abilities of left-handed people compared to right-handed people. The first is based on the fact that indicators of behavior and neuro- mental activity left-handed people have it worse than right-handed people. Proponents of this approach cite data on the frequency of left-handedness among patients with epilepsy, mental retardation, schizophrenia, and hereditary alcoholism, as well as the fact that, when becoming adults, these individuals retain low adaptive capabilities and a certain “fragility” of mental activity.

The second approach asserts the equality of abilities of right-handers and left-handers.

According to the third approach, left-handers have higher levels of neuropsychic activity and greater adaptive capabilities than right-handers. This is justified by the fact that a left-hander constantly has to adapt to a “right-handed” world (indeed, take such little things as scissors or turnstiles in the subway, created with right-handers in mind). The correctness of this approach can be demonstrated by citing whole list great left-handers, among whom will be the Roman emperors Tiberius and Julius Caesar, generals Alexander the Great, Napoleon, scientists J. C. Maxwell, I. P. Pavlov, artists Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, writer Lewis Carroll, actor Charlie Chaplin, and finally, the president USA W. Clinton and many others. All three views on the abilities of left-handers have a right to exist, especially since in essence they correspond to the basic concepts of the emergence of left-handedness, and therefore do not contradict, but complement each other. In addition, the negative and positive properties of being left-handed may be two sides of the same coin. For example, there is evidence to suggest that connections between parts of the cerebral cortex located in different hemispheres in left-handers, compared to right-handers, are less rigid.

If a left-hander has a different brain structure, then his thinking and his entire psyche are somewhat different from the usual type. Indeed, it has been proven that left-handed children are usually more vulnerable, emotional, active, quick-tempered, angry and anxious. They often get used to a change of environment less well when they first enter kindergarten or school. Left-handed children usually sense the color and shape of an object much more subtly and see differences between objects even when right-handed children consider them absolutely the same, i.e. more individualize the world. That is why there are so many left-handed children in schools for the artistically gifted.

It should be noted that left-handers often experience a delay speech development, incorrect pronunciation of sounds, but this also goes away as you grow older. Left-handers often do not like exact sciences, but not because they are uninteresting or difficult. It’s just that schooling is structured taking into account the peculiarities of right-handed perception; left-handed children learn things a little differently. educational material. Such children have well-developed intuition and imaginative thinking, but their logic is “lame.”

The study of the characteristics of left-handed children is complicated by the fact that left-handers are not at all a homogeneous group. Exist various reasons left-handedness, on which the development of certain qualities in a child may depend. In addition, there is “hidden left-handedness.” But that's not all. A child may be left-handed, but not completely left-handed. To understand the diversity of these manifestations, first of all, let us distinguish between the concepts of “left-handedness” and “left-handedness.”

Left-handedness determines only the leading hand, while left-handedness is a complex characteristic that reflects greater activity of the right hemisphere of the brain (unlike right-handed people, in whom the left hemisphere dominates). Thus, if a child prefers to do everything with his left hand, then we can confidently say that he is left-handed. However, whether he is left-handed in general can be judged only after identifying his dominant eye, dominant leg and dominant ear. Usually this is done special tests, but sometimes you can figure it out by carefully observing a child (adult) during an activity, such as playing sports. A person will often use only one of the paired organs in a more active form: pushing off with one leg; aim with one eye squinted and the other open; when it is hard to hear, turn one ear towards the sound source, etc.

For more precise definition The individual characteristics of left-handed children must take into account the totality of human asymmetries. Therefore, in modern psychology the term “individual profile of laterality of function organization” (PLO) is used, which denotes a certain combination of sensory and motor asymmetry.

In children, the dominant hand is mainly formed by the age of 4 years, and before this age, hand preference may be unstable. If at the age of 4 a child prefers his left hand, and especially if there are left-handed relatives, then the child cannot be retrained. By retraining a left-handed child to use the right hand, you can develop neurosis: restless sleep, sleepwalking, tics, obsessive movements, stuttering, bedwetting. The child may develop a feeling of inferiority, an inferiority complex, an inability to communicate with people, etc.

If a child has equal command of his right and left hands, he is considered “ambidextrous”, or ambidextrous (both hands work like the right hand). The mental characteristics of such children may be the same as those of left-handed people, but they easily get used to writing with their right hand and do not suffer from dextre-stress. Typically, such children draw well and are musically gifted, but problems arise with writing and reading until about the age of 9 (each individual). sounds, but this also goes away as you grow older. Left-handers often do not like exact sciences, but not because they are uninteresting or difficult. It’s just that education at school is structured taking into account the peculiarities of perception of right-handed people; left-handed children learn educational material somewhat differently.

The functional characteristics of left-handed children, such as difficulties in visual-motor coordination, disturbances in spatial perception, increased fatigue and decreased performance, anxiety and excitability, cannot but cause a number of school difficulties. But whatever the difficulties, most often these are difficulties in learning to write (less often, writing and reading together).

While working with children with learning disabilities at the beginning of the century, doctor Samuel Orton noticed that among them there were often left-handers and children with an unstable hand preference. Orton also noticed that many left-handed children have a dominant right eye (they look with their right eye into a microscope, into a hole in a card, etc.). Based on these observations, Orton suggested that the cause of difficulties in learning to read is incomplete dominance of the left hemisphere. The works of S. Orton aroused great interest in the scientific and medical community in the study of dyslexia as a manifestation of specific learning difficulties not associated with developmental delays or emotionally motivated areas. Numerous studies have shown that the situation is not as simple as it seemed at the beginning of the century. Thus, dominance of the right hand and left eye was found in many healthy children who are successful learners. Many left-handers and ambidextrous people also have excellent abilities. Modern attempts to determine the characteristics of hemispheric specialization in speech in dyslexics (children with difficulties learning to read) have yielded conflicting results. So it turned out; that the speech centers in these children are located in the left hemisphere, as is normal. But visual-spatial functions, as Sandra Whitelson showed, are performed not only by the right, but also by the left hemisphere. Moreover, visuospatial tasks can be performed well by children with reading difficulties. It is assumed that insufficient specialization of the left hemisphere, that is, its performance of both speech and visuospatial functions, leads to difficulties in learning to write and read. The peculiarity of specialization of the cerebral hemispheres discovered by S. Whiteson is characteristic mainly of dyslexic boys. This is consistent with data that there are approximately 10 times more boys than girls among dyslexics. (However, if we analyze the number of boys and girls with other learning difficulties, it turns out that there are significantly fewer girls with learning difficulties than boys). It is curious that dyslexia only applies to sound-letter writing. When European children with school difficulties were taught to read Chinese characters, they successfully completed the task.

Psychological and pedagogical studies of primary schoolchildren show that left-handed children are characterized by increased distractibility due to their sensitivity and reactivity. nervous system, therefore, external stimuli interfere to a greater extent with the purposeful learning activities of left-handed students than of right-handed students.

Let us consider in more detail the characteristics of left-handed children, manifested in educational and labor activity, their influence on the process of personality formation and the teacher’s tactics in relation to a left-handed child.

Left-handed children, much more often than right-handed children, have a whole range of writing difficulties: pronounced handwriting impairments, tremors, incorrect lettering (optical errors: p?t, l?m, n?k, x?zh, etc.), distortion their configurations, distortion of the relationship of parts, mirror writing.

The problem of left-handedness remains one of the most serious in pedagogy. The group of left-handed children itself is so heterogeneous that, unfortunately, it is impossible to draw up methodological recommendations for teaching this category of students, although the Ministry of Health has issued methodological recommendations prohibiting the retraining of left-handers

Left-handed child at school

About 10% of people are left-handed, and, according to estimates of foreign and domestic experts, the proportion of left-handed people tends to increase. In almost every elementary school class you can find 1-2 (and sometimes more) children who actively prefer their left hand to their right when writing, drawing and performing other activities.

Left-handedness is not a pathology or a developmental defect. And especially not the whim or stubbornness of a child who simply does not want to work “like everyone else” with his right hand, as some parents and “experienced” teachers sometimes believe. Left-handedness is a very important individual characteristic of a child, which must be taken into account in the process of education and upbringing.

Hand asymmetry, i.e. dominance of the right or left hand, or an unexpressed preference for one of the hands (ambidexterity) is due to the characteristics of the functional asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres. In right-handed people, as a rule, the left hemisphere is dominant, specializing in processing verbal information (in 95% of right-handers, the speech center is located in the left hemisphere).

In left-handers, the arrangement of the main functions between the hemispheres is more complex and is not simply a mirror image of the brain asymmetry found in right-handers. Numerous studies (Springer S., Deutsch G.) show that functional asymmetry in left-handers is less pronounced, in particular, speech centers can be located both in the left and simultaneously in the right hemisphere, and visual-spatial functions are usually performed by the right hemisphere , can also be controlled by the left. Thus, left-handers have less clear specialization in the functioning of the cerebral hemispheres.

The specificity of the brain functions of left-handers affects the characteristics of their cognitive activity, which include: an analytical method of processing information, element-by-element (in parts) work with the material; better recognition of verbal stimuli than nonverbal ones; decreased ability to perform visual-spatial tasks (Bezrukikh M.M.; Mikadze Yu.V., Korsakova N.K.).

Until recently, left-handedness was a serious pedagogical problem. It was considered necessary to systematically retrain left-handed children who had no alternative when choosing a hand for writing - everyone had to write with their right hand. When retraining, sometimes the most severe measures were used (punishment, putting a mitten on the left hand, etc.), regardless of the individual characteristics and capabilities of the child and sacrificing his health. There is numerous data showing that in left-handed children, neurotic conditions and neuroses are much more common than in right-handed children. One of the main reasons for the development of neuroses in left-handed people is considered to be forced learning to use the right hand in the first years of life or in the first year of school. This reason becomes obvious in the light of data on the features of functional asymmetry of the brain: relearning leads to a breakdown of the naturally developed individual lateralization profile, which serves as a powerful stress factor. Essentially, forced retraining is a form of pressure from the right-handed environment, which equates a left-handed child with itself and ignores his individuality.

IN last years The school has abandoned the practice of retraining left-handed children and they write with a hand that is comfortable for them.

However, this does not eliminate the problem of left-handedness for schools, since children remain - hidden left-handers. We are talking about those cases when a natural left-hander is retrained into preschool childhood. Such retraining can be purposeful in nature, when parents, noticing the child’s tendency to prefer the left hand, strive to correct this “shortcoming” and prevent the possible difficulties that await the child in the future. Most often, this happens in families with hereditary left-handedness, where one or both parents or immediate relatives are also left-handed. In such families, adults are especially attentive to this aspect of the child’s development, since they themselves have encountered the problems of living as a left-hander in a right-handed environment.

IN preschool age non-violent retraining is also possible. In early preschool age, parents and educators do not always pay special attention to which hand the child has, especially since the direction of “handedness” is clearly established only by the age of 3-5. Meanwhile, when learning new actions, children try to do as the adult says: take a spoon in the right hand, hold a pencil with the right hand, etc. And the left-handed child, fulfilling the adult’s demands, does as he is told, even if this action is for him not very comfortable. As a result of such non-violent retraining, many parents may not even suspect that their child is left-handed.

When mastering everyday skills, a child’s hidden left-handedness, as a rule, does not affect the success of performing actions, however, when starting systematic learning at school, especially when mastering writing and reading, such children may encounter unexpected difficulties.

Therefore, it is important to determine the direction of the child’s “handedness” before starting training: in kindergarten or upon admission to school.

To diagnose the type of leading hand in children starting from 5-6 years old, it is possible to use various functional tests: the interlacing of fingers test, the “applauding” test, the test of crossing the arms on the chest, or the “Napoleon pose”, etc.

In the practice of working with children, the method of assessing the participation of hands in the process of performing various actions is widely used. These can be symbolic actions, when the child is asked to show how he, for example, waters flowers, cuts bread, holds toothbrush, scissors, etc. Actions can also be real, performed in specially selected tasks that require manipulation.

The test battery of similar tasks includes the following game tasks: drawing with the right and left hands, opening a box, cutting along the contour of the picture with scissors, stringing beads, untying knots, etc. (Bezrukikh M.M.) In each task, the degree of activity of the right and left hands is assessed. Based on this, a conclusion is made about the child’s dominant hand and appropriate recommendations are given regarding which hand is appropriate to teach him to write.

The child who scores more plus points in the “Left hand” column is considered left-handed. As the authors point out, if such a child takes a pen in his left hand and tries to write with it, it is inappropriate to retrain him and force him to write with his right hand. But even if the child received more pluses in the “Right hand” column, but draws with his left hand and the quality of the drawing is higher than when drawing with his right hand, he should not be forced to write with his right hand (provided that he himself is trying to write with his left).

Certain difficulties arise when choosing the dominant hand for ambidextrous children, that is, those children who have demonstrated equally good command of both their left and right hands. In this case, the following options are possible:

Clearly left-handed in everyday life, but graphically ambidextrous, that is, they write and draw equally well with their right and left hands. As a rule, these children are left-handed, but at home or in kindergarten they were retrained with early childhood, when drawing, they encouraged working with the right hand. For these children, the process of learning to write is easier if they write with their left hand, although the quality of writing may not be satisfactory enough (poor handwriting, writes like a chicken with its paw).

They are clearly right-handed in everyday life, but they write and draw with their left hand or equally with their right and left hands. In practice, the reason for using the left hand rather than the right hand when writing and drawing may be a previous injury to the right hand or a violation of its motor functions. In this case, it is advisable to teach the child to write with his right hand.

Determining the child’s dominant hand is necessary in order to make fuller use of his natural characteristics and reduce the likelihood of complications that arise in left-handed children during the transition to systematic schooling. However, in an effort to prevent difficulties that await a left-handed person when learning to write with the right hand, one must remember: determining the leading hand and choosing the hand for writing on this basis is an extremely important step.

Indeed, retraining left-handed children in many cases is not only undesirable, but also unacceptable. As experience in working with such children shows, often retraining, begun after the child has begun systematic learning to write (in the middle to late 1st grade), only aggravates the situation. Therefore, the question of retraining a left-handed person can only be raised before learning to write begins.

However, along with this, there are many cases of successful retraining of left-handed children without negative consequences.

Thus, the question of retraining a left-handed child in every specific case should be decided strictly individually, taking into account individual physiological and psychological characteristics, adaptive capabilities of the body and personal attitudes of the child. In this case, one should take into account the diagnostic results of all lateral signs accompanying left-handedness: dominance of the eye, ear, lower limb (Krylov D.N., Kulakova T.P.). As already mentioned, left-handed children have a certain specificity of cognitive activity. This applies to both true left-handers and overeducated ones, whose cerebral hemispheres perform functions unusual for them.

In the activities of a left-handed child, the peculiarities of the organization of his cognitive sphere may have the following manifestations:

Reduced ability of visual-motor coordination - children cope poorly with tasks of drawing graphic images, especially their sequence; have difficulty holding a line when writing or reading; usually have bad handwriting.

Disadvantages of spatial perception and visual memory, difficulties in analyzing spatial relationships: left-handed people often experience distortion of the shape and proportions of figures when depicting graphically; mirroring of the letter; skipping and rearranging letters when writing; optical errors, confusion in writing of letters with similar configurations (t-p, m-l, n-k, i-n); errors when determining the right and left sides, when determining the location of objects in space (under-above, on-behind, etc.).

A special strategy for processing information, an analytical style of cognition: left-handers are characterized by element-by-element work with the material, putting it “on shelves”, based on this detailed analysis a holistic view of the object of activity is constructed. This largely explains the slowness of left-handed children, since for complete perception or understanding they need a longer, step-by-step elaboration of the material (Mikadze Yu. V., Korsakova N. K.).

Weakness of attention, difficulty switching and concentrating.

Speech disorders: errors in sound-letter analysis. The listed features most directly affect the success of mastering academic skills, primarily writing (to a lesser extent, reading), which left-handed children have the greatest difficulty mastering.

One of the most important characteristics of left-handed children is their emotional sensitivity, increased vulnerability, anxiety, resentment, irritability, as well as reduced performance and increased fatigue. This is a consequence not only of the specifics of interhemispheric asymmetry, but also of attempts at relearning, which many left-handed children could not avoid. In addition, the fact that approximately 20% of left-handed children have a history of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, birth injuries (according to some data, birth trauma can be one of the causes of left-handedness, when the functions of the damaged left hemisphere, more susceptible to the influence of unfavorable conditions, partially taken over by the right hemisphere).

The increased emotionality of left-handed children is a factor that significantly complicates adaptation to school. For left-handers, entering school life occurs much slower and more painfully than most peers. Therefore, left-handed first-graders require close attention from teachers, parents and school psychologists.

A child's left-handedness can be identified by a psychologist during the child's enrollment in school. With such children, it is advisable to conduct a more in-depth diagnostic examination aimed at identifying their psychological characteristics in order to give parents necessary recommendations on organizing special classes in the summer.

During the first grade (and possibly for a longer time), left-handed schoolchildren may need a set of special classes aimed at developing:

hand-eye coordination;

accuracy of spatial perception;

visual memory;

visual-figurative thinking;

ability to holistically process information;

motor skills;

phonemic hearing;

speech.

When organizing developmental work, a psychologist may need to involve a speech therapist and a child psychoneurologist in cooperation.

When working with left-handed children, one should take into account certain features of developing their educational skills, primarily writing skills.

The writing technique for left-handers is specific: for a left-handed child, both right-hand and left-hand writing are equally inconvenient, since when writing he will block his line working hand. Therefore, you should place your hand so that the line is open. For left-handed people, it is recommended to turn the notebook right-angled and write straight (without slanting) (Bezrukikh M. M.). In this case, the way of holding the pen can be different: usual, as in right-handed people, or inverted, when the hand is located above the line and bent in the form of a hook.

When mastering writing, a left-handed child must choose for himself the option of writing letters that is convenient for him (left-handed children more often make ovals from left to right and from top to bottom; their writing has more breaks, is less coherent, letters are connected by short straight lines). It is contraindicated to require a left-handed person to write continuously. In the classroom, left-handed children are recommended to be seated by the window, on the left at the desk. In this position, the child does not disturb the neighbor, and his workplace has sufficient lighting.

One more factor should be taken into account that facilitates the learning activities of a left-handed child. This concerns taking into account the leading eye when choosing a student's workplace. The child's desk should be placed in such a way that the information field is aligned with the dominant eye. So, if the left eye is dominant, then the blackboard and teacher’s workplace should be in the student’s left visual field (Mikadze Yu. V., Korsakova N. K.). The last of these requirements may be incompatible with the first, since the usual left-handed location of the workplace on the left in a row near the window is advisable with the dominant right eye. However, considering the dominant eye when placing students in the classroom is important not only for left-handed children, but also for all other children.

So, a left-handed child can have a lot of problems at school. But it should be noted that left-handedness is a risk factor not in itself, but in connection with certain disorders and developmental deviations that may occur in specific child. Not all left-handed children, especially if in preschool childhood attention was paid to their full mental development, will have serious complications when mastering educational activities.

However, it is fair to note that modern school programs, focused primarily on the development of logical-sign, i.e., left-hemisphere, components of thinking, do not provide the opportunity to realize the potential of a left-handed child who has a right-hemisphere orientation. Meanwhile special studies indicate a relatively higher creative potential left-handers, which is detected during problem-based learning and initiation into artistic creativity(Rotenberg V.S., Bondarenko S.A.).

Introduction 3

Conclusion 26

References 31

Introduction

Relevance of the work.

tasks:

An object

research methods:

conclusions

A left-handed child can have a lot of problems at school. But it should be noted that left-handedness is not a risk factor in itself,
connections with those specific disorders and developmental deviations that may occur in a particular child. Not all left-handed children, especially if in preschool childhood attention was paid to their full mental development, will have serious complications when mastering educational activities. Modern school programs, focused primarily on the development of logical-sign, i.e., left-hemisphere, components of thinking, do not provide the opportunity to realize the potential of a left-handed child who has a right-hemisphere orientation. Meanwhile, special studies indicate a relatively higher creative potential of left-handers, which is revealed during problem-based learning and introduction to artistic creativity.

When mastering writing, a left-handed child must choose for himself the option of writing letters that is convenient for him. It is contraindicated to require a left-handed person to write continuously. In the classroom, left-handed children are recommended to be seated by the window, on the left at the desk. In this position, the child does not disturb the neighbor, and his workplace has sufficient lighting.

When organizing developmental work, the teacher may need to involve a speech therapist and a child psychoneurologist in cooperation.
When working with left-handed children, one should take into account certain features of developing their educational skills, primarily writing skills.

It is necessary to use step-by-step presentation of material. Those. For training left-handers, breaking down the entire system of actions into sequential operations is ideal. A left-handed person must perceive everything strictly sequentially.
Therefore, when explaining a method of action, it is necessary to highlight the stages of execution in their clear sequence, and unify the procedure for completing tasks, making it suitable for any type of work.
In left-handed people, the flow of many types of mental activity requires the use of external conscious techniques for mastering operations that, in right-handed people, are formed independently of the efforts of the child in the process of his growth. Therefore, it is necessary to begin to engage in the formation of individual links of spatial representations as early as possible and no later 5- 7 years, and 9 years is the age when there is an increase in self-regulation and activity of intracerebral connections, which occurs precisely during the period of training in primary school.

The concepts of “top” and “bottom” (floor - ceiling) are usually learned well, which cannot be said about the terms “next” and “previous”. It should be taken into account that in children, facing to the class, “right” corresponds to the concept of “left” for those sitting at their desks, which is difficult and slow to be learned by first-graders, especially left-handers.

At the same time, orientation on a sheet of paper is improved, because if the concepts of “right” and “left” remain unchanged, then the directions “top” and “bottom” appear on the same plane, but if you put the sheet vertically and mark a point on it at the bottom, and then put paper on the desk, then the child will be convinced that the “bottom” is exactly in this place. That is, the “bottom” is near the stomach, and the “top” is the farthest. This is better explained, because for a right-handed person the operation of transferring the “bottom” to the bottom of the sheet, where he undoubtedly draws the grass, occurs naturally, but for a left-handed person it is necessary to involve external funds, so that everything becomes clear, otherwise he will continue to carry out the transfer operation in his mind every time for a long time.

Next, the concepts of upper right corner, lower left corner, etc. are worked out. A productive option for classes with a whole class is when a sheet of paper is replaced with the surface of a desk and the child works within the boundaries of his workplace. Students, on the teacher’s command, place an eraser in the indicated place, for example, in the upper right corner. In this case, it is much easier to follow the movements.

Very important stage mastering left-handedness notebook sheet is the correct counting of cells in all directions. The fact is that attempts to insure them often end in failure, as the child simply does not notice the clue points! Therefore, it is good to reinforce the command “retreat down three cells” by moving your hand downwards.

Then it's your turn graphic dictations. It is desirable that at the end of dictation in a notebook, if done correctly, you will get some kind of recognizable silhouette.

In modern manuals there are many tasks for selecting a pair for a given figurine from several options given below, among which there is a mirror image. It is useful to copy a pattern, starting with simple figures and gradually increasing their complexity, but still, in preliminary analysis, highlighting the individual parts and planning the order of work.
dysgraphic errors in the writing of left-handed children and how to prevent them.
Encourage your child to lace, tie and untie knots as much as possible. With your left hand, of course. Let him lay out a mosaic and put together puzzles.

conclusions

It’s useful to assemble and disassemble Lego models, to untwist small parts designers.

Laying out cards and dealing cards is also good training.
Ordinary stencils with images of animals, birds, fruits, vegetables, etc. can become your assistants in teaching your child. For older children, stencils for writing letters and numbers will be useful. These classes will be aimed not only at developing fine motor skills, but also at preventing errors in writing.

Hatching helps achieve very good results.
You can shade your own drawings geometric figures, pictures in coloring books, cartoon characters.

It is very important that the child has an understanding of in the right way letters and numbers. Write incorrect letters among the “correct” letters or make a “practice” sheet on the computer with letters and numbers written down incorrectly.
Invite your child to independently fill in the missing elements of the letters, the writing of which may be difficult.

Based on the fact that the imaginative thinking of a left-handed person is more developed, you can invite him to find associations for each of the “complex” letters, then the child will remember them much faster.

Very good exercise- trace objects along the contour.
Another type of exercise, which is aimed not only at preparing for mastering writing skills, but also at training attention and memory, is sketching. Do not forget that it is very useful for a child to draw, paint, sculpt from plasticine, and make appliqués. Also exercises and specially organized classes will be very useful for the development of fine motor skills.

Conclusion

In elementary school, the child develops the basic elements of the educational activity leading during this period, the necessary educational skills and abilities. During this period, forms of thinking develop that further ensure the assimilation of a system of scientific knowledge and the development of scientific and theoretical thinking. Here are the prerequisites for independent orientation in learning, Everyday life. During this period, a psychological restructuring occurs, requiring from the child not only significant mental stress, but also great physical endurance. The schoolchild is characterized by the dominance of external or practical activity, and the strength of this activity is quite great. At this age, the awareness of oneself as a subject of teaching begins for 85% of the world's population. The right hand is the main one and has long been revered as such in human culture. Our entire civilization is structured according to the “Right-Handed” principle (including the invented way of writing and the principle of how a book is organized: we turn pages from right to left with our right hand). Usually we don't think about it. But it’s worth imagining this picture: all the doors and all the handles on the doors are adapted to be conveniently grasped with the left hand in order to understand how the world greets left-handed people.
The experience of many countries in the world, in which left-handed children are not only not retrained, but also created all the conditions for a normal existence, education, and obtaining a profession, has convincingly shown that careful attitude to these children has a beneficial effect on their development. Many countries have specialty stores for left-handed people, where you can buy knives and scissors, various devices, sports accessories, Sewing machines and even computers with keyboards adapted for left-handed people. Hand preference is taken into account not only in childhood; a left-handed adult can acquire almost any specialty, since there are machines, devices and devices designed for left-handed people. Unfortunately, we don’t have all this. Perhaps the restriction in the choice of certain professions is what pushes parents to retrain their left-handed children.

Teachers of the old generation and parents of past decades, teaching all children to use their right hand indiscriminately, were guided by very clear practical considerations: it is inconvenient to be left-handed. The habit of using the left hand, from their point of view, reduced the child's adaptive capabilities.

In order not to make a mistake in the chosen pedagogical strategy, it is better to determine in time whether the child has signs of left-handedness. It is especially important to know this before he enters school. Psychologists recommend making a special determination of the so-called “manual hand preference” at the age of four to five years. Only specialists can do this properly. But both teachers and parents can carry out the “first tests” - so that they can later be confirmed or refuted by professional psychologists.

Undoubtedly, left-handedness cannot be considered the cause of disorders or deviations in development, the cause of reduced intellectual and physical capabilities. Another thing is clear - predominant control of the hand depends not on the child’s desire or his stubbornness, but on the special organization of brain activity, which determines not only the “leading” hand, but also some features of the organization of higher mental functions. At the cost of great effort, you can teach a left-handed child to use his right hand, but you cannot change his biological essence.

Bibliography

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Left-handed child in elementary school

Introduction 3

Chapter 1. Psychological and pedagogical features of working with left-handed children 5

1.1 Concept and reasons for “left-handedness” 5

1.2 Features of the cognitive sphere of left-handed children 7

1.3 The problem of teaching left-handed children at school 11

Chapter 2. Experimental work with a left-handed child in elementary school 17

2.1 Working with a left-handed child in elementary school 17

Conclusion 26

References 31

Introduction

Relevance of the work. About 10% of people are left-handed, and, according to estimates of foreign and domestic experts, the proportion of left-handed people tends to increase. In almost every elementary school class you can find 1-2 (and sometimes more) children who actively prefer their left hand to their right when writing, drawing and performing other activities. Left-handedness is not a pathology or a developmental defect. And especially not the whim or stubbornness of a child who simply does not want to work “like everyone else” with his right hand, as some parents and “experienced” teachers sometimes believe. When retraining, sometimes the most severe measures were used (punishment, putting a mitten on the left hand, etc.), regardless of the individual characteristics and capabilities of the child and sacrificing his health. There is numerous data showing that in left-handed children, neurotic conditions and neuroses are much more common than in right-handed children. One of the main reasons for the development of neuroses in left-handed people is considered to be forced learning to use the right hand in the first years of life or in the first year of school. This reason becomes obvious in the light of data on the features of functional asymmetry of the brain: relearning leads to a breakdown of the naturally developed individual lateralization profile, which serves as a powerful stress factor. Essentially, forced retraining is a form of pressure from the right-handed environment, which equates a left-handed child with itself and ignores his individuality.

In recent years, the school has abandoned the practice of retraining left-handed children so that they write with a hand that is comfortable for them.
However, this does not eliminate the problem of left-handedness for schools, since children remain - hidden left-handers. We are talking about those cases when a natural left-hander is retrained in preschool childhood. Such retraining can be purposeful in nature, when parents, noticing the child’s tendency to favor the left hand, strive to correct this “deficiency” and prevent the possible difficulties that await the child in the future. Most often, this happens in families with hereditary left-handedness, where one or both parents my closest relatives are also left-handed. In such families, adults are especially attentive to this aspect of the child’s development, since they themselves have encountered the problems of living as a left-hander in a right-handed environment.

The purpose of this work is to study the features of working with left-handed children in elementary school.

To achieve this goal it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

To study the psychological and pedagogical features of working with left-handed children;

Summarize the teaching experience primary classes with a left-handed child.

An object research: left-handed child in primary school.
Subject of research: process of organization pedagogical work with a left-handed child in elementary school.

The following were used in the work: research methods: study and analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature, observation, conversation, content analysis, diagnostic - pedagogical situations.

The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the results of this work can be useful for primary school teachers when working with left-handed children.

Left-handedness- this is not a pathology or a lack of development. This is a very important individual characteristic of the child, which must be taken into account in the process of training and education.

Hand asymmetry, i.e. dominance of the right or left hand, or an unexpressed preference for one of the hands (ambidexterity), is due to the characteristics of functional asymmetry cerebral hemispheres.

Until recently, left-handedness represented a serious pedagogical problem. It was considered necessary to systematically retrain left-handed children. When retraining, they sometimes used the most stringent measures, regardless of the individual characteristics and capabilities of the child and sacrificing his health.

There is numerous data showing that in left-handed children, neurotic conditions and neuroses are much more common than in right-handed children. One of the main reasons for the development of neuroses in left-handed people is considered to be forced learning to use the right hand in the first years of life or in the first year of school.

In recent years, the school has abandoned the practice of retraining left-handed children so that they write with a hand that is comfortable for them.

However, this does not eliminate the problem of left-handedness for schools, since children with hidden left-handedness remain. We are talking about those cases when a natural left-hander is retrained in preschool childhood. Such retraining can be purposeful in nature, when parents, noticing the child’s tendency to prefer the left hand, strive to correct this “shortcoming” and prevent the possible difficulties that await the child in the future.

In preschool age, non-violent retraining is also possible. In early preschool age, parents and educators do not always pay special attention to which hand is the child’s dominant, especially since the direction of handedness is clearly established only by the age of 3-5. Meanwhile, when learning new actions, children try to do as the adult says: take a spoon in the right hand, hold a pencil with the right hand, etc. And a left-handed child, fulfilling the adult’s demands, does as he is told, even if it is the action is not very convenient for him. As a result of such non-violent retraining, many parents may not even suspect that their child is left-handed.

When mastering everyday skills hidden left-handedness a child, as a rule, does not affect the success of performing actions, however, when starting systematic learning at school, especially when mastering writing and reading, such children may encounter unexpected difficulties.

Therefore it is important to determine hand direction child before starting education: in kindergarten or upon admission to school.

To diagnose the type of dominant hand in children starting With 5-6 years it is possible to use various functional tests: finger interlace test, clapping test, cross-arms-on-chest test or Napoleon pose and etc.

In the practice of working with children, the method of assessing the participation of hands in the process of performing various actions is widely used. These can be symbolic actions when the child is asked to show how he, for example, waters flowers, cuts bread, holds a toothbrush, scissors, etc. Actions can also be real, performed in specially selected tasks that require manipulation.

The test battery of such tasks includes the following game tasks: drawing with the right and left hands, opening a box, cutting along the outline of a picture with scissors, stringing beads, tying knots, etc. (Bezrukikh M. M., Knyazeva M. G., 1994).

In each task, the degree of activity of the right and left hands is assessed. Based on this, a conclusion is made about the child’s dominant hand, and appropriate recommendations are given regarding which hand is appropriate to teach him to write.

Certain difficulties arise when choosing a leading hand in ambidextrous, that is, those children who demonstrated equally good command of both their left and right hands. In this case, the following are possible options:

1. Pronounced everyday left-handers, but graphic ambidextrous, i.e., equally good at writing and drawing with their right and left hands. As a rule, these children are left-handed, but at home or in kindergarten they were retrained from early childhood, and they were encouraged to work with their right hand when drawing. For these children, the process of learning to write goes easier if they write with your left hand, although the quality of writing may not be satisfactory (poor handwriting, writes “like a chicken with its paw”).

2. They are clearly right-handed in everyday life, but they write and draw with their left hand or equally with their right and left hands. In practice, the reason for using the left hand rather than the right hand when writing and drawing may be a previous injury to the right hand, a violation her motor functions. In this case, it is advisable to teach the child write with your right hand.

Determining the child's dominant hand is necessary in order to make fuller use of his natural characteristics. And to reduce the likelihood of complications that arise in left-handed children during the transition to systematic schooling.

However, along with this, there are many cases of successful retraining of left-handed children without negative consequences.

Thus, the issue of retraining a left-handed child in each specific case should be decided strictly individually, taking into account individual physiological and psychological characteristics, the adaptive capabilities of the body and the child’s personal attitudes. In this case, one should take into account the diagnostic results of all lateral signs accompanying left-handedness: dominance of the eye, ear, lower limb (Krylov D.K., Kulakova T.P., 1988).

As already mentioned, left-handed children have a certain specificity of cognitive activity. This applies to both true left-handers and overeducated ones, whose cerebral hemispheres perform functions unusual for them. In the activities of a left-handed child, the peculiarities of its organization cognitive sphere may have the following manifestations:

1. Reduced ability of visual-motor coordination: children cope poorly with tasks of drawing graphic images, especially their sequence; have difficulty holding a line when writing or reading; usually have bad handwriting.

2. Disadvantages of spatial perception and visual memory, difficulties in analyzing spatial relationships: left-handed people often experience distortion of the shape and proportion of figures when depicting graphically; mirroring of the letter; skipping and rearranging letters when writing; optical errors, confusion in writing of letters with similar configurations (t-p, m-l, n-k, i-n); errors when determining the right and left sides, when determining the location of objects in space (under-above, on-behind, etc.).

3. A special strategy for processing information, an analytical style of cognition: left-handers are characterized by element-by-element work with the material, putting it “on shelves”; on the basis of such a detailed analysis, a holistic idea of the object of activity is built. This largely explains the slowness of left-handed children, since in order to fully perceive or understand they need a longer, step-by-step processing of the material (Mikadze Yu. V., Korsakova N. K., 1994).

3. Weakness of attention, difficulty switching and concentrating.

4. Speech disorders: errors in sound-letter analysis.

The listed features most directly affect the success of mastering academic skills, primarily writing (to a lesser extent, reading), which left-handed children have the greatest difficulty mastering.

One of the most important characteristics of left-handed children is their emotional sensitivity, increased vulnerability, anxiety, touchiness, irritability, as well as decreased performance and increased fatigue. This is a consequence not only of the specifics of interhemispheric asymmetry, but also of attempts at relearning, which many left-handed children did not avoid (dextrastress).

In addition, the fact that approximately 20% of left-handed children have a history of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, birth injuries (according to some data, birth trauma can be one of the causes of left-handedness, when the functions of the damaged left hemisphere, more susceptible to the influence of unfavorable conditions, partially taken over by the right hemisphere).

The increased emotionality of left-handed children is a factor that significantly complicates adaptation to school. For left-handers, the transition to school life is much slower and more painful than for most peers.

A child's left-handedness can be identified by a psychologist during the child's enrollment in school.

During the first grade (and possibly for a longer time), left-handed students may need to carry out a complex special classes, aimed at development:

Hand-eye coordination;

Accuracy of spatial perception;

Visual memory;

Visual-figurative thinking;

Ability to holistically process information;

Motor skills;

Phonemic hearing;

When organizing developmental work, a psychologist may need to involve in cooperation speech therapist and child psychoneurologist. When working with left-handed children, one should take into account certain features of developing their learning skills, first of all writing skills.

For left-handed people, it is recommended to turn the notebook to the right and write straight (not slanted). (Bezrukikh M. M., Knyazeva M. G., 1994). In this case, the way of holding the pen can be different: usual, as in right-handed people, or inverted, when the hand is located above the line and bent in the form of a hook.

When mastering writing, a left-handed child must choose for himself the option of writing letters that is convenient for him. It is contraindicated to require a left-handed person to write continuously. In a class of left-handed children, it is recommended to sit by the window, on the left side
that one. In this position, the child does not interfere with the neighbor, and he
the workplace has sufficient lighting.

Account should be taken into account leading eye when choosing a student’s workplace. The child's desk should be placed in such a way that the information field is aligned with the dominant eye. So, if the left eye is dominant, then the blackboard and teacher’s workplace should be in the student’s left visual field (Mikadze Yu. V., Korsakova N. K., 1994).

The last of these requirements may, however, be incompatible with the first, since the usual left-handed location of the workplace on the left in a row near the window is advisable with the dominant right eye. However, considering the dominant eye when placing students in the classroom is important not only for left-handed children, but also for all other children.

Not all left-handed children, especially if in preschool childhood attention was paid to their full mental development, will have serious complications when mastering educational activities.

However, modern school programs, focused primarily on the development of logical-sign, i.e., left-hemisphere, components of thinking, do not provide an opportunity to realize the potential of a left-handed child with a right-hemisphere orientation. Meanwhile, special studies indicate a relatively higher creative potential of left-handers, which is revealed during problem-based learning and introduction to artistic creativity (RotenbergA S., Bondarenko S. M., 1989).

Right and left hemisphere brain are designed to perform different functions, which is called functional asymmetry of the hemispheres. In relation to the learning process, we can say that the right hemisphere provides imaginative thinking, spatial orientation and sensory perception of the world, while the left hemisphere is responsible for abstract thinking and the verbal-logical nature of the cognitive process. Despite the specialization of the cerebral hemispheres, it functions as a single whole due to interhemispheric interaction.

It is known that the specialization of the cerebral hemispheres is innate. With the dominance of the left hemisphere, a person is characterized by a tendency to logical thinking and generalizations. Right-brain people are more emotional and have a developed imagination. Moreover, approximately half of humanity belongs to these two types, while the remaining part does not have a pronounced dominance of the hemispheres.

Every adult has a preference (asymmetry) for one of two paired organs - arm, leg, eye, ear. Everyone has an inherent combination of preferences, called an individual lateral profile:
- mental - due to the specialization of the brain hemispheres;
- motor - indicating a preference for the leading hand (and leg, which is not considered now;
- sensory – showing the choice for the leading eye and leading ear.

Theoretically, right, left and mixed lateral profiles are distinguished. In children, an individual lateral profile can be finally formed only by 9–10 years of age (junior school age).

By the first grade, the lateral profile is formed in only half of the students. An unformed lateral profile sometimes includes a lack of dominance, that is, in the case of the hand, ambidexterity. Children with a homogeneous (right or left) profile represent a fairly favorable group in terms of the need for a specific approach to their education. A more “problematic” group is represented by students whose dominant eye does not coincide with their dominant hand.

With left-handedness, preference for the left hand is a small part of the problem, and another hemispheric asymmetry of the brain, different from right-handed people, comes to the fore. In left-handedness, another interhemispheric interaction is also manifested, which is improved in the process of child development due to the maturation of individual zones of the cortex and the final formation of nerve pathways connecting both hemispheres.

Taking into account the difficulties in teaching left-handed people, or more precisely, non-handed people, they can be divided into several groups.

The second group includes emotional, creative children, sometimes unstable academically, but successfully mastering the program, especially in a number of subjects.

The third group unites “disheveled” children with always untied shoelaces, with a mess on their desks, in their briefcases and in their heads, who cannot find anything, systematically forgetting both school things and program material. As a rule, they have cross laterization and without special individual assistance, their success melts away, the desire to learn evaporates, giving way to despondency and unfinished work.

The fourth group could include children with mental retardation or mental retardation, but their left-handedness is not the cause, but the result of pathology.,

Insufficiency or disturbance of spatial concepts, expressed to one degree or another, is characteristic of the majority of left-handers, including children with hidden left-handedness. It is precisely the unformedness of spatial representations at the beginning of schooling and a number of other features of left-handed people promise them a lot of difficulties with mathematics.

Along with the expected difficulties when mastering the first geometric constructions, errors arise when counting, when choosing the order of actions in numerical expression, and the answers in the examples often differ from what is expected, at least by one, both in oral and written calculations ... And the list of such specific errors could be continued.

A child entering fifth grade is expected to:

– ability to read and write numbers within 1,000,000;
– solid knowledge of addition and multiplication tables single digit numbers at the level of automated skill;
– possession of the skills of correct and sufficiently fast oral calculations within one hundred;
– the ability to perform written calculations: addition and subtraction of multi-digit numbers, multiplication and division of multi-digit numbers into single-digit and two-digit numbers with appropriate verification of the correctness of calculations;
– the ability to find the value of a numerical expression in several steps with and without parentheses;
– ability to solve problems in 2–3 steps;
– knowledge of units of measurement of length, area, mass, time with the ability to convert them into larger or smaller ones, as required by measurements or task conditions;
– the ability to perform simple geometric constructions and find the perimeter and area of a rectangle.

And in each of the sections studied, there are difficulties characteristic of left-handed children and children with hidden left-handedness. However, in the overwhelming majority of children, especially from the first and second groups, they are able not only to master the elementary school curriculum, but also to successfully cope with tasks of increased complexity, even if not from all of the sections listed.

Is it possible to teach left-handed people mathematics?
These children are very heterogeneous in their psychophysiological characteristics. In the category of children under discussion, delays and imbalances in the formation of higher mental functions are more often observed; when studying mathematics, this manifests itself, for example, in counting or disturbances in spatial concepts.

However, they are not the only ones who need a different, right-hemisphere learning style (after all, most generally accepted pedagogical methods are focused on left-hemisphere perception). The late and uneven maturation of individual zones of the cerebral cortex and the neural pathways that provide interhemispheric interaction is the reason that almost half of today's first-graders come to school with the preferences of the dominant eye or ear not fully formed. And it is also better to train them, taking into account the individual characteristics of the specialization of the hemispheres.

The introduction of four-year education in primary schools for children starting from the age of six and a half brought children to school who, due to their age characteristics, had just begun to use the left hemisphere, the contribution of which to psychological functioning is still small. These kids are characterized by emotionality, involuntariness, and cognitive activity is holistic and imaginative in nature with strong intuitive principles.

A dry, abstract, sequential presentation of material with repeated repetition is not suitable for teaching children with a dominant right hemisphere. Their memory is involuntary and will better remember a vivid image. Thinking is emotional and intuitive, so constant participation in the lesson requires the creation of a problem situation. It is better to explain new theoretical material through practical tasks, actively using the intonation capabilities of speech and accompanied by visual reinforcement. Since reading the rules in a textbook is essentially closer to studying a scientific text, working with a textbook must be taught specifically, as well as understanding the conditions of the problem. Reading problems often causes right-hemisphere students to have difficulty understanding the content. Such a child always goes from the whole to the particular, therefore, having read the condition, he must first imagine the situation, and then, sequentially highlighting all the numerical data and the dependencies between them, solve this specific problem. It is much easier for a right-hemisphere student to cope with calculating the meanings of expressions and solving equations if these are not abstract numbers in a textbook, but tasks, for example, on deciphering riddles.

It is believed that geometry is mastered better by right-brained children than algebra, but left-handed children have to overcome spatial difficulties before they begin to like this science.

What to do if the kids are not doing well at school? Some people continue to have difficulty reading syllables until the end of first grade; others have never learned the order of the months of the year. Some people just don’t understand when to add and when to subtract. Someone writes “like a chicken with its paw,” and thinks for a long time before writing the next letter, while the class has already finished the entire sentence. Or maybe all these troubles happened at once?

First you need to correctly qualify all of your child’s difficulties. The task of the teachers, parents and, of course, psychologists surrounding the child is to help in a timely manner. Only then can you achieve positive result, albeit not immediately, but this will provide an opportunity to fully form the cognitive sphere and personality of the baby.

And although poor handwriting, missing letters and the inability to master the curriculum are not always explained by left-handedness, among healthy children who do not perform well in the lower grades and who seek advice from specialized centers, about 70 percent turn out to be left-handed.

I would like to warn desperate parents against such a radical step as changing the leading hand. In this situation, the hand is a reflection of the brain organization of human psychological activity! Retraining can lead to inhibition of higher mental functions, and the consequences may not appear immediately, but the poor child will have to fight them again. Even if the right hand was chosen as the leading one due to your own short-sightedness, issues of retraining are resolved only with specialists, and a positive decision can only be made if the retrained left-hander used his right hand only before starting systematic writing lessons or, in as a last resort, in the first days of training. But even this step is not always possible.

Externally imposed right-handedness may turn out to be stronger, because the relearning was carried out during the formation of motor functions and has already turned out to be woven into a complex system of distribution of functions between the hemispheres. Therefore, parents do not have the right to act at their own peril and risk with any seemingly peremptory arguments, since they risk not their health, but their mental and physical health another person, even their own child.

Pedagogical secrets of teaching little left-handers.

All left-handers exhibit imbalances in speech formation, reading, spatial concepts, and emotions. This can be expressed both in advance and in lag behind generally accepted norms, and the child suffers in any case: if he is ahead, he becomes bored in the lesson, and if he lags behind, gaps in knowledge arise. And since the affective-volitional sphere of little left-handers is characterized by insufficiency, the consequences of failures are quite deplorable.

What should you always keep in mind as an adult teaching a left-handed person?

1. Left-handers are characterized by slowness with a characteristic stuckness at the beginning of any type of activity, and this should not be the subject of reproaches.

Under no circumstances should a left-hander be rushed; in the hustle and bustle he will either make a lot of mistakes or stop completely. And in a situation of stress, such a child often falls into such a panic that one cannot dream of successfully completing the work.

Therefore, you can’t angrily threaten him with “just try and don’t write” - he won’t write. It is harmful to remind you of a past failure before work - you will invite a new one. For the most part, left-handed people are unstable: you can support them kindly and wait for the result in uncertainty. When working with them, you need patience, a sense of humor (it really helps), the desire to understand and tune in to others, not considering yourself with your ambitions as an ideal, the desire to constantly think and look for a way to victory.

2. It is necessary to create a calm, friendly atmosphere in class time, designed to calm the majority of emotionally unstable and anxious children who deeply experience their failures and mistakes. This environment will increase your chances of success.

3. Should be taken into account main reason Left-handedness is an organization of the activity of the cerebral hemispheres that is different from right-handedness, which is reflected in any activity of the child. Left-handers behave differently, trying with all their might to achieve clarity on the issue that interests them, sometimes ignoring tact and interrupting the interlocutor, regardless of age. Therefore, a child with signs of left-handedness is rarely loved by the teacher. His irresistible desire to clarify and some tediousness cause a protest from the teacher if the adult does not explain to himself the reason for the described behavior by the peculiarities of the child’s mental activity. It is in this matter that unformed spatial representations are reflected, and since there is no support, the child is forced to build logical chains that lead him to the right decision.

4. It is important to remember that there is, to one degree or another, confusion in spatial representations with the consequent need to look for an arithmetic error, according to at least at the first stages of training, primarily in them, although, of course, the most “ordinary” student mistakes are allowed.

5. It is necessary to use a step-by-step presentation of material not from the point of view of a tiny dosage followed by immediate development, but by highlighting the necessary stages in the process of mastering any algorithm. In this way, almost every skill acquired in elementary school can be described. This makes it easier for the child to build a logical chain for mastering this material and creating a holistic picture of what he has learned.

For training left-handers, breaking down the entire system of actions into sequential operations is ideal. A left-hander must perceive everything strictly sequentially; an omission in the explanation of some stage will go unnoticed by a right-hander, but will completely unsettle the poor left-hander. Therefore, he himself tries, albeit in a unique way, to structure the material.

It should be borne in mind that often a left-handed child is confused not by the essence of the action being performed, but by the volume of the task, which must, firstly, be consistently reproduced independently, and secondly, with my own hand in your notebook. To the constantly experienced feeling of ambiguity in the design of any work is added anxiety about the correct observance of the sequence of operations. Therefore, the correctness of the answer fades into the background, and an error often becomes the expected result. The solution takes on a life of its own, in which it is not going to take into account the poor owner of the notebook.

Therefore, when explaining a method of action, it is necessary to highlight the stages of execution in their clear sequence, and unify the procedure for completing tasks, making it suitable for any type of work.

6. Use at work creative tasks, supporting both the interest and desire to win of inherently inquisitive lefties, and showing that not everything is as simple as it might seem at first glance.

7. It is necessary to maintain constant feedback with the child. A left-handed person cannot study something without understanding it. He assimilates the material strictly in stages, and skipping or misunderstanding something leads to losing the thread of reasoning. By giving a strict algorithm and teaching how to use it, you will overcome the child’s powerlessness, but without sorting out the mistakes he makes or without eliminating a sudden hitch, you will deprive him of confidence.

It is difficult for a child with his own individual characteristics to adapt to such a complex and strict world of school. Help and explain in more detail the essence of his mistake, and then work on this task - and the uncertainty will go away.

But the presence of feedback also presupposes activity on the part of the child himself. Hence the strict rule follows: a left-handed person must be taught to catch the moment when misunderstanding began and signal about it. In this way, it is possible to avoid confusion and unnecessary loss of time in examining the explanation from the very beginning. It will be even better if the child can formulate what exactly he did not understand, or at least indicate difficult place. After all, the ability to ask a question needs to be learned, and a timely exclamation of “I don’t understand” saves the child from complete misunderstanding of the new material.

Case from practice: When learning about Roman numerals, when the whole class happily filled out the table, writing opposite the usual Arabic numerals new Roman ones, and on the board there was a note demonstrating the method of forming Roman numerals within the first ten, because the problems of six-year-olds with “right-left” were known, one of the most capable girls stubbornly repeated her “I don’t understand.” I explained to her in all possible ways the intricacies of the formation and depiction of “nasty” Roman numerals and already suggested the latter effective way- go to the board when she exclaimed in despair: “Yes, I’ve known these numbers for a hundred years! WHERE should I write them?” She simply did not notice the cells of the table... Live and learn!

Spatial representations.

In children with left-handedness, difficulties in spatial representation are caused by a deficit in the contribution of both the right and left hemispheres, with interhemispheric interaction not yet formed.

In addition, in left-handed people, the flow of many types of mental activity requires the use of external conscious techniques for mastering operations that, in right-handed people, are formed independently of the efforts of the child in the process of his growth. Therefore, it is necessary to begin to form individual links of spatial representations as early as possible and no later than 5–7 years, and 9 years is the age when self-regulation and activity of intracerebral connections increases, which occurs precisely during the period of primary school education.

Even little right-handers at the age of 6 get a little confused, looking for right and left, but in children with signs of left-handedness such landmarks are completely blurred. The easiest way out of the situation is a bracelet made of thread on the left hand, especially since it is now fashionable for both boys and girls.

The concepts of “top” and “bottom” (floor - ceiling) are usually learned well, which cannot be said about the terms “next” and “previous”. It is necessary to take into account the fact that for children facing the class, “right” corresponds to the concept of “left” for those sitting at their desks, which is difficult and slow to be learned by first-graders, especially left-handers.

Physical education classes provide great assistance in understanding one’s bodily space, as well as the external one. But the children themselves do not practice verbal constructions; they learn them passively, since this lesson has completely different tasks. And besides, we have to sadly admit that problem children with signs of left-handedness often try to evade a difficult lesson for them, since they are not distinguished by either dexterity or coordination of movements.

During physical education minutes, the teacher can practice the concepts of “next” and “previous” by handing out cards with the serial numbers of the first ten to the children and at first calling several children with verbal instructions on how to stand up. Then a discussion is held about who is behind whom and in front of whom, who is previous and who is next. You can change the scenario a little, and then the child will have to arrange three or four children himself, observing the condition that Masha, for example, will be on the right, Fedya on the left, and Katya and Vova in the middle, and Vova should be between Katya and Masha. This is an example of a fairly difficult task. The task with three characters is easier. Of course, you can use toys instead of children, then the completion time will be reduced and two students will have time to participate.

The kids love the game "Robot", when the driver leaves the class, and the students hide the "treasure", and then call "robot". While the child is waiting outside the door, a search route is outlined in the classroom so that more children (but no more than ten) have time to command the “robot.” When the driver enters, he is given commands, for example, “step forward,” “turn right,” “three steps forward,” etc.

At the same time, orientation on a sheet of paper is improved, because if the concepts of “right” and “left” remain unchanged, then the directions “top” and “bottom” appear on the same plane, but if you put the sheet vertically and mark a point on it at the bottom, and then put paper on the desk, then the child will be convinced that the “bottom” is exactly in this place. That is, the “bottom” is near the stomach, and the “top” is the farthest. This is better explained, because for a right-handed person the operation of transferring the “bottom” to the bottom of the sheet, where he undoubtedly draws the grass, occurs naturally, but for a left-handed person it is necessary to attract external means so that everything becomes clear, otherwise it will remain in the mind for a long time every time perform the transfer operation.

Next, the concepts of upper right corner, lower left corner, etc. are worked out. Usually, children, on instructions from the teacher, draw something in a specified place, but it is virtually impossible to monitor the correct completion of this task during the work; it is only possible to record an error that has already occurred. Therefore, a more productive option for classes with a whole class is when a sheet of paper is replaced with the surface of a desk and the child works within the boundaries of his workplace. Students, on the teacher’s command, place an eraser in the indicated place, for example, in the upper right corner. In this case, it is much easier to follow the movements.

The next step might be to difficult task when the teacher asks you to just look at the left top corner, the synchronous movement of children’s gazes can also be monitored quite successfully. But since the task is still orientation on the sheet, you can move on to this phase of learning, since there will now be fewer mistakes, and any mistake brings confusion to the child’s ideas. It is performed as follows: on a white (or colored) sheet of paper, children place a bright dot in the right place, as instructed by the teacher, or better yet, let the teacher himself put it before handing out the sheets. Students take a bright felt-tip pen or colored pencil and, on command, draw, for example, a wavy line from a designated point to a specified corner, then with a dotted line, for example, draw a line to the middle of the bottom of the sheet, etc. The teacher himself thinks through the commands in advance so that the result is attractive result.

A very important stage in mastering a notebook sheet for a left-handed person is the correct counting of cells in all directions. The fact is that attempts to secure them often end in failure, since the child simply does not notice the clue points! Therefore, it is good to reinforce the command “retreat down three cells” by moving your hand downwards.

Then comes the turn of graphic dictations. It is desirable that at the end of dictation in a notebook, if done correctly, you will get some kind of recognizable silhouette, becoming more complex each time. A more complex, but quite accessible version of the dictation includes tasks with movement along the diagonal of the cells.

In modern manuals there are many tasks for selecting a pair for a given figurine from several options given below, among which there is a mirror image. Such an exercise will only be useful after children have received an algorithm for analyzing an image, because they often just look at it without understanding how to make a choice. It is necessary to sequentially analyze each drawing out loud, even better by bringing a given figure separately depicted to the sample in question and showing the signs by which this comparison is made. Then such a task will be beneficial.

It is useful to copy a pattern, starting with simple figures and gradually increasing their complexity, but still, in preliminary analysis, isolating individual parts and planning the order of work.

In the process of further learning, we illustrate counting and calculations by moving along a number line; in problems, work with space is present in the form of diagrams, not to mention work with geometric material.

The main thing when working with a little left-hander is presence of mind and faith in victory, if not complete, then at least in gradual, consistent improvement. Support your student, because it is much more difficult for him!

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