Sixth Grade
Worksheets
The Ten Percent Club
International Lefthanders Day
Reading Comprehension for August 11
Nearly everyone is born with two hands, so you'd think that turning out left- or right-handed would be a fifty-fifty proposition. It is not. Only ten percent of the American population can call themselves southpaws. We could say that they belong to The Ten Percent Club. Of that ten percent, twice as many are male as female. An interesting fact is that ten percent of the figures featured in ancient Egyptian tomb drawings are left-handed. Even all those thousands of years ago, left-handed people were in the minority.
To be considered left-handed, you must write with your left hand. It doesn't matter how many things you can do with your right hand; the left-handed label applies to you if that's the hand pushing a pencil across paper.
It is said that your handedness is ruled by the opposite side of the brain. Your right hand is controlled by the left side of the brain, and your left hand is controlled by the right side of the brain. It may not be that simple. Scientists have studied handedness for years. They haven't been able to agree on an explanation for the imbalance in handedness; some believe left-handed tendencies are hereditary.
It isn't easy to be left-handed in a right-handed society. If you are working at a table and bump elbows with someone, chances are good that one of you was using the left hand! Years ago it was common for teachers to use any means possible to force a change in handedness. Writing with the right hand just seemed "right" to the right-handed majority. Many adult lefthanders tell stories of being spanked or ridiculed. Some had their left hands tied behind their backs, while others suffered through having their left hand rapped with a ruler whenever they chose to write with it. Such tormented children felt as if there were something seriously wrong with them! Studies have shown that more than one-third of all children who were made to switch from using their left hand to using their right developed a stammer or some other speech impediment. Now it is more common to respect left-handed children's handedness rather than try to change it.
However, respect alone is not enough. Did you know that many common objects have a handedness to them? Take a wild guess as to which hand such objects are designed for. It's not the left hand! Scissors in particular cause problems. Where a right-handed person can cut paper easily, the pressure applied by a left-handed person causes the scissors' blades to push apart; paper gets stuck sideways between them. Other objects that give lefties fits are computer mice and school desks that have the writing surface attached to the chair on the right side. The shutter buttons on cameras are always on the right side, convenient for right-handed photographers. Manual can openers are backwards for the left-handed person. Many other objects create difficulties for left-handed individuals, so much so that companies exist that design and sell left-handed products for left-handed people.
In some professions, the percentage of left-handed members is greater than the percentage as a nation. These include architecture, law, mathematics, wait staffing, acting, and comedy. Lefties are represented in the creative arts at over twice their ratio in the general population!
Famous Lefties from History: Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Napoleon Bonaparte, Queen Victoria, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Picasso, Ben Franklin, Helen Keller
Famous Lefties in Sports: Ty Cobb, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Babe Ruth, Larry Bird, Barry Bonds, Monica Seles
Famous Lefties in Entertainment: Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Jerry Seinfeld, Marilyn Monroe, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, Jay Leno, Whoopi Goldberg, Nicole Kidman, Lisa Kudrow, Keanu Reeves, Bruce Willis
