I am trying to take a file full of strings, read it, then print out a few things:
Where are you declaring the String backwardsWord?
If you don't clear it between words then the memory space allocated to that string will still contain the previously added characters.
Make sure you are tossing in a backwardsWord = ""; in between words to reset it's value and that should fix your problem.
Without seeing more of your code I can't tell you exactly where to put it.