Why kids mix up left and right, and how to help

Up, down, in front and behind are easy. Left and right are not, and many children still mix them up at seven or eight. It is not carelessness: left and right are genuinely harder than any other direction word.

Why left and right are hard

Every other direction is fixed. Up is up whichever way you face. But left and right turn with you: my left hand is on your right when we face each other. Children have to learn the words for their own body first, then learn to switch them for someone or something facing them — a much later skill.

There is also nothing to see. Up and down have the sky and the floor. Left and right have only your body, and your two hands look the same.

What helps

Pick one anchor. The hand they write with, a watch or a hair tie on one wrist, a freckle. "Right is the side with your bracelet."

Lifehack: hold up both hands, palms out, thumbs sticking out to the side. The left hand makes an L. It works every time, and children love having a secret trick.

Use the words all day. "Your right shoe." "Turn left at the mailbox." "The cup on your left." Children learn direction words from hearing them used, not from lessons.

Play Simon Says. "Simon says touch your left ear" is left-and-right practice disguised as a game.

Left and right on the page

Pictures add the hard step: deciding which way something faces. A fish swimming to the right has its nose on the right — whatever side of the page it is on. Our Which Way? sheets fill the page with one picture, some facing right and some left, in different colors and sizes: count how many swim each way. It is a counting sheet, but every fish asks the left-or-right question.

Reading and writing

Letters like b and d are mirror images, and children who are still sorting out left and right often reverse them. That is normal until about seven. Practice with pictures that face a way helps with both. For more on reversals, see letter tracing and grid drawing, which is left-and-right with a pencil.