differentiating between b, d, and p

[mammabear6]

My dd is 6 and is learning to read this year. We are using Hooked On Phonics and she it is working great overall. The only problem she is having so far is telling the difference between the little b, d, and p. Every time we come to a word with one of the letters in it she guesses which one it is and looks at me to see if she is right. I have tried telling her that the p goes down and the d and b goes up. How can I help her recognize the difference between them? Will it just come with time?

 

Thanks

[ElizabethB]

I like to teach all uppercase for the first year to prevent this problem, and write out whatever program I'm using on a whiteboard in uppercase.

 

Overteach B for for bit (in uppercase)

 

Then, overteach D for a bit (uppercase)

 

Then, work on both.

 

Then, add in P.

 

Here's other ideas for B/D problems and a sample worksheet to overteach BD and bd. (But for a remedial student who has learned all the sounds, you may need to make up your own words using sounds that have been learned so far.)

[peacefully]

.

[Closeacademy]

I get physical with my phonics and this really helps my children to remember them.

 

b has a belly and I pat my belly

d has a derriere and I pat my behind

and p is a princess swimming below the line.

 

Silly but it works.:001_smile:

[inactive]

We used "Handwriting without Tears" for a while and the sequence/methods seemed to really help my son distinquish between those tricky letters.

[Ellie]

One of the pitfalls of HOP is that there's very little writing required in the reading process, but that's easily fixed. :-)

 

The Spalding Method teaches children to write their letters as they read them, so that the shape of the letter and its sound are inseparable. This is how Spalding teaches those letters:

 

b is a tall letter with a short part. It begins with a line (the tall part) and ends with a circle (the short part). The line starts at the top of the space and goes down to the base line, where the b sits. When you say /b/, your lips make *sort of* a line.

 

d is a short letter with a tall part. It begins with a circle (the short part) and ends with a line (the tall part). (The circle starts at 2 on the clock, goes up to 12, around to 9, down to 6, up again, with the straigt line going all the way up to the top line, pull down to the base line, where the d sits). When you say /d/, your lips make *sort of* a circle (not a true circle, of course, but *sort of* a circle).

 

p sits on the base line. It begins with a line and ends with a circle.

[FO4UR]

Focus on one letter at a time. Take b, for example, and make a b out of playdough (the 3D and physical nature of playdoh makes it stick in a way pencil/paper cannot). Then give her a page of random letters (including b d p q and more) and have her circle all of the b's. (It helps if the playdoh model is still out on the table)

 

Then use a verbal cue for writing the b. Spalding or HWT....whatever, so long as it's verbal. (I like saying "from the top, down, then up and around" for b)

 

Do this will b d p and q at the pace of about 1 letter per week. Then keep reviewing all 4 every week until they are "stuck." Make pages and pages of random letters for her to circle letters with crayon....b are blue, p are purple, d are dark green, and q are yellow like a Queen's Crown. Have her write one letter per day.

 

hth - I am right there with you. My ds6 has a visual discrimination problem, and this is pretty much how we have remediated the pbpq confusion. Now, for those pesky 6 and 9's.....:001_huh:

[Blessed with seven]

One thing I learned from the program we are using is:

 

Balloons/Pigs

 

make a fist with your left hand (left hand is important), if she is right handed she can hold her pencil in her right hand so she knows not to use that hand. Put your thumb in the air and while the hand is facing you that is a /b/ "balloons go up in the air", then poing your thumb down, which makes a /p/, "pigs are down in the mud".

 

Everyone else has great ideas also, just adding in one I thought was helpful. :001_smile:

[lollie010]

We had the same problem. It was slowing down ds's progress. I just wrote a Bb, Dd, Pp at the top of the whiteboard. He had no problem with the uppercase letter so when he came to b, d, or p in a word I would just point to the model I had written. After about a week, he would just look up and figure it out on his own and them about a week later he did not need it anymore. I had tried the other tricks and they just seemed to confuse him. This one worked for us.

[Mama2two]

We used "Handwriting without Tears" for a while and the sequence/methods seemed to really help my son distinquish between those tricky letters.

 

That is what has really worked for my five year old. For b and d, which he has confusion with sometimes I ask him what does he see first? A "c" or a straight line? which letter is written that way? If he is stil confused I have him cover up the back of the letter to see what is first. Works great. Most of the time he can tell now just by looking. I think you could aldo do that with P.

[wonderfilled]

My two boys both had a problem with this. For the 2nd one I made a bookmark with a b, d, and p on it with a picture next to each one that begins with that letter. He kept it in the reader he was working through. I liked it because he didn't have to guess or ask me. He liked it, too. After a while he didn't need it anymore. In the meantime, you could use some of the other suggestions to help him remember if you wanted to.

[Devotional Soul]

Someone else here shared this one that worked for my ds:

 

Bat before Ball

 

Drum before Drumstick

 

I drew a letter b as a baseball bat and a ball, then a letter d as a drum and drumstick. When he didn't know while reading, I'd ask, 'what comes first, a bat or a drum?'

[melmichigan]

Teaching b bowls forward helps my DD. We are also doing HWT, but she is using HOP like your DD.

[RootAnn]

My kids struggle with visual issues and have some mild dysgraphia (I think that's what it is called). They reverse b/d and s/z, plus many of their numbers are made mirror-image (3s look like E, 2s are backward, 6, 7, etc all backward). This has mostly straightened out by the age of 7. Learning phonograms is really funky as they frequently reverse the letters (rw for wr, re for er, iu for ui, etc.).

 

Someone said letter reversals won't happen if you use cursive, but you should see my six year old making backward h's in cursive. Quite impressive, if completely confusing to her mom!

[JenneinCA]

To the Original Poster, we made a bookmark with capital and lower case letters and referred to it as often as needed.

 

To RootAnn, I have never heard of anyone else with a child who could do cursive backwards before. My ds9 did this too. The only thing that helped was time. Ultimately he finally figured out writing letters with italic. But it has been a long hard slog!