Writing in Reverse

One of the health department regulations for Monkey1's preschool stipulates that each child's snack be labeled with the child's full name and the date. So every morning I stick a length of blue painter's tape (because that's what's floating around in the kitchen drawer) on her plastic container and write her name and the date.

Recently Monkey1 said she wanted to write her name on her snack. Since I had already labeled the container, I simply put another piece of tape on the side, handed her the marker, and let her work on it. Only while cleaning up at the end of the day did I notice that she had written her name backwards. Perfectly, hold-it-up-to-a-mirror, backwards. I was amazed. I had noticed the occasional "S" in reverse, which seems fairly common for beginning writers, but every letter of her name? and spelling her name right to left instead of left to right? Wow. She's been writing her name on her own almost all summer. So really WOW!

My husband was less enthusiastic, with cautious worries of dyslexia or something.

Oh I'll watch for repeats of this, but I prefer to roll in the amazement of my glorious firstborn.

(Hm... I wonder if reading a number of Japanese anime/ graphic novels, like My Neighbor Totoro, which read back to front, have anything to do with this.)