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Any tips for kids confusing d and b


farming_mum
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Hold up 2 fists, with thumbs pointing up. Turn hands so knuckles face each other. Bring them together to make a "bed." Thumbs are the headboard and footboard. The left hand is making a lowercase b and the right hand is making a lowercase d.

 

If my younger daughter is confused, I say "Show me your b and d. Which one is it?" She holds up both fists, raises the one that matches, and then says the correct letter. Works every time. :)

 

You can view a picture of a bed graphic for b & d in Phonics Pathways. The newest edition can't be previewed online, but check out page 35 of the 2005 edition on Amazon: link. (Search the word bed, and then click on page 35.) My older daughter also had trouble with b and d, and I ended up making that picture into a bookmark for her. She didn't use it much though. As soon as she got the idea, she was more likely to hold up one fist to check than look at the bookmark.

Edited by jplain
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What Wendy said. I was super worried over this.

 

Just gently correct but don't make a fuss or an issue out of it. Given time and maturity it will sort out. In the PS 2nd grade (Feb) my then 7YO was still making half of his letters and numbers backwards, reversing their order when writing them down (he would say the answer was 13 and write 31, with the 3 backwards to boot) and even pronounce words with sounds backwards when attempting to read. I was convinced the child was dyslexic.

 

8 months later with homeschooling, and higher writing expectations but more time to do the writing, and treating writing as a separate task from academics (if I needed information, I scribed for him) the reversals are gone, and he can read fluently and for pleasure.

 

We have work to do to regain speed and confidence, but he can even write for content now. I don't think we used any specific tricks-- just time, and practice, and he did have to fix whatever he wrote incorrectly, but it was done nicely.

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I have been telling DD to think b is before d' date=' the line comes before the ball on b, and same with p and q. It helped some, but she still has a hard time remembering.

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Ball and stick style handwriting confused my son more. If you use the terms ball and bat or ball and stick in reference to both letters, it just doesn't help at all.

 

We switched to HWT, which taught that 'd' and 'q' both start with a "magic c". For 'b', you start at the top. For 'p', you dive down, swim back up and around. Now if he starts to make a 'q', I can just say "Dive down! Dive down!" and he'll quickly switch to a 'p'. :D It's a lot easier for him to remember them now that they have VERY different methods of formation.

 

You don't have to use the HWT program, necessarily, but I would recommend a continuous stroke program that has some sort of "saying" for how to create the letter that differentiates the two letters more.

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Write the word

 

bed

 

somewhere where your child can see it. When the word is written so that it really looks like a little bed (not deb) then you know that the b is first and the d is last.

 

This simple little visual helped my kids enormously. They needed it available for a time (several months? a year?) but over time internalized the lesson and didn't need it any more.

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Along with the bed, try pronouncing each letter really clearly and talking about how your mouth feels when you say each one. From doing that, we call "p" the "puff" letter because you let out a bit of puff when you say it. Making them more distinctive can help.

 

Also, time works pretty well. Just correct without getting upset.

 

My 6.5 yos, who can read at a fifth grade level, says "bed" every time he writes a b or d.

 

Emily

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It won't get worse. I used to just correct them every time it happened and the confusion stopped after a short time.

 

:iagree:

 

For both my dd's they confuse the d and b as well as the p and the q when reading.

 

I just remind them that b is bat and then ball and they know. For d it's doorknob then door. For p it's pickle then pizza and for q it's always with it's bestfriend u. Sounds confusing but they actually understood when I drew the letters as I was saying the phrases. This helps them when confused with writing these particular letters as well as reading them.

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I'm mean- I made my daughter do a worksheet on b, then she did a handwriting sheet and wrote the letter a bunch of times. The next day I repeated the exercise with d. It completely cured her of writing the wrong letter.

 

It doesn't prevent her from making mistakes while reading though- I chalk that up to inexperience.

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Hold up 2 fists, with thumbs pointing up. Turn hands so knuckles face each other. Bring them together to make a "bed." Thumbs are the headboard and footboard. The left hand is making a lowercase b and the right hand is making a lowercase d.

 

If my younger daughter is confused, I say "Show me your b and d. Which one is it?" She holds up both fists, raises the one that matches, and then says the correct letter. Works every time. :)

 

You can view a picture of a bed graphic for b & d in Phonics Pathways. The newest edition can't be previewed online, but check out page 35 of the 2005 edition on Amazon: link. (Search the word bed, and then click on page 35.) My older daughter also had trouble with b and d, and I ended up making that picture into a bookmark for her. She didn't use it much though. As soon as she got the idea, she was more likely to hold up one fist to check than look at the bookmark.

 

BRILLANT!! I just brought both my dd's in the room and did this and they both were excited and were running around with bed hands hollaring b d b d hey mom look this is b and this is d...haha

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When you say /b/ you make a line with your mouth (lips). So the line comes first. When you say /d/ your tongue curves. So the curve comes first.

 

This has been so much easier than the bed illustration for all of our 8dc. If the bed illustration works for you that's great, but for mine it too long to make all the hand motions and think about it while they were trying to write. Thinking about the formation of their mouth while trying to say the sound helped for reading and writing.

 

Pam

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