Your helpful ideas for teaching b, p, d,

[Stellalarella]

DD6, in kindy, is coming along very nicely in reading, but he still very often struggles with differentiating b, p, d. Even with capital letters he gets confused. We're using Phonics Pathways and HWT, also reading BOB books.

I would love to hear how you've helped your young reader with this issue.

[RahRah]

DS6 was having some issues with b and d....not p though.....I used "the bat comes before the ball for b" and "the doorknob is before the door in d" sayings....DS slowly but surely has been getting much better with differentiating the letters - and when he has a struggle now, I just prompt him with 'bat before ball is..." and "doorknob before the door is..." to remind him if he needs some help, which is now pretty infrequent after a month or so of working on it. I also did a lot of practice writing of the letters and the letters in words - like a page a day for a couple of weeks - as his handwriting practice....I figured if he *did* the formation of the letters, in the words, he'd start to wire his brain to *see* the difference in time....so I'm not sure what is really what's worked - the saying prompts or the physical writing?

[abacus2]

I love the way that HWOT teaches writing these letters. I also have my dd form the letter shapes with her left and right hand, look at them and see that the left hand comes first and makes the b shape like b comes first in the alphabet. I also have a letter chart with uppercase and lowercase letter that she can look at to remember which letter is which. Initially, she would sing the alphabet song through the chart to remember the letters.

[Stellalarella]

"Bat before the ball" and "Doorknob before the Door" is great! Thanks!

I would love to hear more ideas :001_smile:

[ElizabethB]

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/dbdb.html

[redsquirrel]

Lol, I just posted about this same issue a couple weeks ago.

 

I used the info from the link posted by ElizabethB and it worked like a charm.

 

Well, I didn't 'overteach' or anything. I just had him stand in front of a mirror and verbalize the 'b' sound. Then, using a white board, I drew a b. I had him feel his lips for the line.

 

I would say that there was an immediate reduction in those mistakes by over 50%.

 

Now, he make the mistake less than once a reading session. I am guessing that very soon it will be a non-issue.

 

It works so well because it incorporated the verbalization. He feels his lips press into the 'line'.