My daughter turned 3 in November. She has just begun drawing discernible things and is really enjoying it. However, she draws upside down!! Her favorite thing to draw is girls. She draws the entire girl upside down, but draws it very well!! There are eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, neck, hair, appendages, and clothes. Am I explaining this well? The girl is perfect, but the head is at the bottom of the paper, and the feet are at the top! It actually seems like it would be quite difficult to do that, but she does. She kind of draws away from herself, I guess.

Also, when looking at books she tends to 'read' the right page before the left. Should I be worried here???

By Coopaveryben on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - 04:36 pm:

I wouldn't be worried yet, most children write backwards and don't understand "right to left", especially at 3. To draw that many details on a body is amazing for a three year old, especially the neck!

By Happynerdmom on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - 04:41 pm:

Kate, I was curious so I did a search...this is informational.


http://www.scholastic.com/earlylearner/experts/learning/3_5_drawupsidedown.htm

By Kate on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - 05:27 pm:

Wow, thanks Michele! Very interesting. Great idea it had about asking her which way she wants the picture hung up!!

By Cat on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - 08:19 pm:

How interesting. Especially the article on scholastic. Just thought I'd throw in here a little something. I had a manicurist once that was left handed and he wrote upsidedown. He said it always drove his teachers nuts! He still had the curl of the hand that a lot of lefties have, but if I was sitting across from him I could read while he wrote. It was really odd. He had great handwriting, too! (and he was cute, but that's beside the point! lol)

By Cheekymama on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 02:19 am:

Does she draw everything upside-down or people only? The girl referred to at the link apparently draws only people upside-down. In that case, is it possible that everyone (i.e. the expert at the link) is making this out to be more a more complicated issue than it really is? What if it's simply that these kids are using themselves as reference when they draw? How would they "see" themselves? They would look down, and from that perspective the "bottom" would be their upper body and scanning "up" they would then see their legs and finally their feet. Young children are naturally self-centered, so maybe it just doesn't even occur to some of them to use other people -- whom they would view with their heads at the top and their feet at the bottom -- as reference. And they would obviously grow out of that once they became "aware" of other people.