Here's a trick you can try right now. Grab a pencil and write NOON in big capital letters. Read it forward. Read it backward. Now turn the paper upside down. Still NOON! That word just will not quit.
A word that reads the same forward and backward has a special name: a palindrome. The word "level" is one. Test it letter by letter: L, E, V, E, L. Now go backward: L, E, V, E, L. Exactly the same!
Here's another one. SOS is a call for help, and when you write it in capital letters, it reads the same forwards, backwards, and upside down too. Go ahead, try it on paper.
Palindromes can be whole sentences. Try "Madam, I'm Adam." Skip the comma and the little apostrophe, then read the letters backward. They line up the same both ways!
Numbers can be palindromes too, like 22, 2002, and 1234321. That last one climbs up to 4 and then walks right back down, like a staircase. Fancy!
Can you think of another word that reads the same forward and backward?
