Are you a ’lefty’?

Being left handed means that you are one of the hundreds of millions of people around the world who do things with their left hand, which most people do with their right hand. For example, you may write with your left hand, and hold a bat or throw a ball with your left hand.Almost 9 times more people are right handed. As a result most activities, tools, sports equipment etc have been made for right handed people and ’lefties’ often just have to manage as best they can…until fairly recently.Well scientists are not sure about why around 85-90% of people are right handed and the others turn out to be left handed.They have discovered that: Left-handedness often runs in families. Therefore, it seems that your genes have something to do with it. Someone else in your family might be left handed too. However, many left-handed kids have right handed parents, brothers, and sisters. How genes work is often rather unclear.More boys than girls are left handed.Some people who have injured their right hand have to learn to become left handed.Some people use their left hand for most things but can use their right hand too. This is called being ambidextrous (am-bi-dex-truss) but only about 1% of all people are truly able to do everything really easily and well with both hands.The English language is written from left to right so that makes it more difficult for ’lefties’ to see what they have written as their hand covers it. Here is a way of writing that may make things easier for you. Sit up straight at the table or desk. Make sure you have more space on the left of the table to rest your arm Hold your pencil about the width of your thumb from the point. Keep your wrist straight when you are writing. Hold your hand in a relaxed position. Don’t tighten your fingers. Make sure your hand is below the line of your writing then you can see what you are doing.Don’t lean forward or rest your head on the desk.If you didn’t learn to write like this from the beginning you may need to practise every day until it becomes easier for you but it will help you be a neater writer.www.cyh.com