Your body has two sides: a left side and a right side. Learning to tell left from right helps you describe where things are, follow directions, and understand how your body is organized.
Use a marker or sticker on one hand to help children remember which is which. Play "Simon Says" with left and right commands. Practice daily — "pick up the crayon with your left hand" or "hop on your right foot."
Mixing up left and right is very common and normal for young children. Some children think left and right switch when they face a different direction. Others think left and right are the same for everyone in the room, not realizing that someone facing them has their right on the opposite side.
Look down at your two hands. One is your left hand and one is your right hand. They look a lot alike — both have five fingers, a palm, and a back — but they are on opposite sides of your body. Everything on your body comes in pairs like this: left eye and right eye, left ear and right ear, left foot and right foot.
Learning which side is which can be tricky at first, and that is completely normal. A helpful trick: hold both hands in front of you with your palms facing away and your thumbs pointing toward each other. Your left hand makes an "L" shape with the pointer finger and thumb. That "L" stands for left. Many kids use tricks like this until left and right become automatic.
Here is the really confusing part: when someone is facing you, their left and right look switched from your point of view. If your friend holds up their right hand while facing you, it looks like it is on your left side. Their right has not changed — it is still their right — but because you are facing each other, everything looks flipped. This is normal and takes practice to get used to. The important thing to remember is that left and right always stay the same on your own body, no matter which way you turn.
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