/b/ and /d/

Honestly, I would wait to teach this skill until the middle of 1st grade. However if you want to begin now you can simply start with making a “bed” with the tips of your thumbs. What you do is you touch your thumbs together to form a bed or a goal post in football. You tell your child that bed begins with a b and ends with a d. The bubbles in the b and d go toward the middle of the bed. Once you make the “bed” with your fingers, this should make sense to you.

Another way to ‘fix’ /b/ and /d/ is to make them out
of modeling clay or wicky sticks (stiffened plastic
covered string).

My dyslexic 12-yr-old still gets them mixed up while
reading.
Tonight we used ‘gooze’ to make the letters.

Anne

Hi Donna,

The best way, if she can handle it, is to simply have her learn them as two visually distinct elements, without having any mnemonic “tricks” involved which will interfere with comprehension if carried to the extreme.

First, make sure she makes each letter differently. Teach her to start a “b” with the line first and a “d” with the circle first. This forces her to make up her mind at the beginning of the process which letter she’s going to print, instead of half way through (if she instead starts both with the line.)

Second, have her write simple words with b’s and d’s in them, saying each sound as she writes the associated letter. Don’t have her say the letter names, just the associated sounds. This process is well-described in McGuinness’s book, “Reading Reflex,” if you have it available.

This process of writing the letters and saying the sounds aloud helps to cement the sound-symbol relationship as you desire. Reading them then becomes less of a 50-50 prospect (guessing.)

Hope this is of some help…..Rod

Donna,

I agree with Rod with the correct formation of b and d. My son did not learn to form his letters correctly and we have spent an enormous amount of time relearning it. With the relearning though has come the keeping of b and d straight though.

Beth

Thank you everyone! I will try them all!

Donna in MO

Rod is right abput using distinctively different letter forms. I’d take it one step further. Create some cards with wide letters. Use heavy marker so the letters are about a half-inch wide. (I also put a green dot where the child should start tracing and a red dot at the stopping point.). Then place a piece of transluscent plastic needlepoint canvas over the letters and have your child trace them, saying their names and represented sounds as s/he traces. Then, when the child blocks on these while reading, simply say, “Trace the letter on your clothing,” and they’ll remember which one it is.

ditto to rod’s post, do not use any tricks or the fingers and the bed thing, the only time a child needs to know the difference between d and b is when he is reading or writing,

stick to the point, and tell the child, especially if he is older that you expect him to remember, don’t dumb it down with tricks, respect his intelligence to remember, dave

I teach resource. I agree with your child’s teacher that it is often developmental even in the 2nd grade. If you want to start working with your daughter now go for it. I wish my parents were more involved in their children’s education. I would suggest that you do some hands on activities. Some things you could do would be to use water color paints, play dough, cookie dough (she can eat her letters and words), trace letters in sand or use sand paper, paint the outside sidewalk with water or use the sidewalk chalk, and make letter tile or use the magnetic letters. You can do all these activities when she begins reading and spelling. It makes learning fun and interactive. Also my students love the stamps for their words. I got the stamps at the school supply store. Have fun and read, read, read!!!!!!!

I also agree that this could be developmental but at the same time encourage you to continue to monitor the situation and by all means work with your daughter. I have a 13 year old son who reversed letters up through the 6th grade. In the lower grades when I would voice concern they would say it is developmental as he got older they would say he can’t be LD we can read what he writes or he is being lazy or that is was related to his ADHD. In 6th grade they evaluated him for speech language and he was determined to have a language disability and CAPD. After a few months of language therapy he quit reversing his letters! He still continues to have difficulty with reading and writing but has improved significantly. I would especially keep an eye open if there is a family history of similar difficulties. Two of my brothers, my father and my grandfather are all dyslexic so I am sure there is a genetic component. Good luck.

But if his learning disability is keeping him from learning the difference between the 2 letters, just telling him that you expect him to remember won’t cut it. He still needs special ways to learn to tell the difference, and to remember them. Remember, it’s not because he’s too lazy or careless to learn the difference; it’s because he’s got a glitch in his brain that’s making it difficult or impossible to learn do so without special training, even though he may be quite bright.

Yours truly,
Kathy G.

dave wrote:
>
> ditto to rod’s post, do not use any tricks or the fingers
> and the bed thing, the only time a child needs to know the
> difference between d and b is when he is reading or writing,
>
> stick to the point, and tell the child, especially if he is
> older that you expect him to remember, don’t dumb it down
> with tricks, respect his intelligence to remember, dave

I just stumbled onto this sight. I think it is wonderful. My suggestion would be to look at the letter to see what comes first. b- see the bat first. d- see the dot first.

Hi Lisa,

The main genetic problem involved in “dyslexia,” as far as I’m concerned, is a vision problem that can be usually be addressed with vision therapy. I personally feel this to be a vastly under-appreciated problem.

Furthermore, I believe the reason it is under-appreciated is two-fold. First, it is hard to detect, and second, public schools are reluctant to accept it as a problem because they may end up having to provide the vision therapy services.

There are many success stories out there, but very few teachers feel comfortable passing them along because someone in administration has passed the word that the school doesn’t want to become liable for providing the service.

Anyway, do your relatives a big favor and tell them to find a good developmental optometrist. My guess is that they will then find out why they have had trouble reading all these years. And please take your son to one.

Sincerely……Rod

What worked for us was to repeat see a *c* make a d, and see a stick make a bat (b for bat). Hope it helps

Thanks Rod, we plan on doing so with our son. When he saw a regular opt. he was noted to have difficulties with tracking and the like. That was when we were ND and could not find a developmental opt, they have one here in the town we are in now. Thanks again.

Our Sp Ed director always said that vision was a medical problem and that is why we couldn’t suggest a developmental optomotrist. The district would not pay for something medical related.

Yes — the important thing is to get the formation of the letters correct and distinct. If they *feel* different, then you can understand why they look different.

If you want to use the jargon to make this sound professional and impress people who like it, you are using *multisensory* learning, *kinesthetic* (motion) sensations added to the visual and auditory.

Work on all letters being formed left-to-right and top-to-bottom.

As mentioned above, b starts with a “stick”, a downstroke from the top, followed by a “reverse ball”, a clockwise circle; and d starts with a “ball”, a counterclockwise circle starting from the midline, followed by a slide to the top and a firm downstroke. The formations are so different that once they are learned, it’s hard to confuse the letters.

You can make this even more useful by using a marker (glides smoothly without hand pressure and cramps) and writing nice and large on file cards or full sheets of blank paper. The smooth motion without breaks and the visual stimulus of a nice large letter help a lot.

At the same time, parallel the auditory and mouth kinesthetic to the hand kinesthetic and visual: say the sound “b-b-b-b” or “d-d-d-d” out loud while forming the letters.

This is a tried-and-true method; keep it up for a while and it will work.

I draw a small bumblebee using the letter “b”. Make sure the letter is done in a dark color and the rest of the drawing in a light color. I tape the picture on the child’s desk in the upper left-hand corner. The child has a readily available visual as to what the letter lloks like and says. A lot of times I will also include a small arrow ppointing to the right under the bee. This is to encourage left to right progression (which also aids in reading the letters “b” and “d” correctly).Donna in MO wrote:
>
> My dd, who is in kindergarten, is 6 years old. She
> frequently gets the /b/ and /d/ mixed up thus saying the
> wrong sounds thus making reading the word difficult. Does
> anyone have a good way of teaching this? Her teacher says
> that is common for kids to get this mixed up until about the
> 1st grade. I would like to teach her a strategy now rather
> than waiting.
>
> Thanks for your help.
> Donna in MO

My son has confused these letters and others and I have tried all kinds of tricks and so has the school but no luck so far.I asked his eye doctor today and he said it is a mystery why the brain does this but I am opened to more ideas too.

You have received several e-mails that may be making you believe that there is a problem. My first e-mail to you was just a list of ideas that would be fun and hands on as well a visual. If you are really concerned and considering a referral to special eduacation keep this in mind. Is she behind in other areas? Is she recognizing the letters, numbers, colors, sounds etc. Is the the only area that she is having trouble with is the reversal of b/d? If this is the only area right now I would wait until the first six weeks of 1st grade and then make a referral. Tell the 1st grade teacher that you are concerned and that you want to make sure that is not a disability. At this age reversing letters is developmental. The kindergarten students that I have in the referral process are ones who are not learning their alphabet, their numbers, or colors. They cannot count, write their letters, they have poor fine motor skills, and they just appear to be stuck in the mud. I do have a large group and it is growing. But the missing skills are the same. Please keep this in mind. If you feel strongly about it then take her to a doctor that can check to see if there is a visual problem. Also talk with the special education teacher in your school and see what he/she thinks. If your daughter has a learning problem there will be more signs than just reversing two letters in kindergarten. I do think it is great that you are willing to work and help out your daughter. I wish I had more parents willing or able to do this. Your daughter is very lucy. Just keep in mind what I have said. Check out her other skills, if they are behind then seriously consider a referral if not work with her and keep a close eye on what she is doing and how she is doing. One other thing that you should take into consideration is: Is there a history of learning problems in the family? If so that may be a key there too. Most of my students have sibilings in the resource program.

The NACD explains that reversals are a function of eye dominance. PACE therorizes that it’s a directionality issue - you don’t tend to ‘work/move’ from left to right. (which I believe if you dig under - the issue of dominance would potentially be why you don’t have the directionality down yet).

My dd is still making b,d reversals. From the posts above on the writing formation- I checked her letter formation and she is making the formations correctly. She knows the difference if she slows down and relooks at the word - but from an automaticity perspective, she still misses them about 50/50.

My dd as tested by NACD is mixed dominant in her far sight visual. (She has sort of a wondering right eye. I still wonder about developmental visual problems, but have had her checked by 3 different sources - one a DO - and she tests our normal). NACD believes in switching dominance and we just weren’t comfortable in doing this all the way to completion- so she still is mixed.

Anyway, I notice with my dd that even after PACE practicing (we have not completed yet- still have quite a bit left of MTC before we are done) - she still wants to read words straight on vs. scanning left to right. It’s like she starts from the middle of the word and then guesses. This has gotten much better with PACE/MTC, but decoding left to right is still not her ‘natural’ mode of decoding. She is also one of those high visual-spatial dyslexia kids. These kids have poor auditory sequential skills and I think they tend to see the word as a whole or as a picture (ie.looking at middle of word first).

The PACE/MTC drills have been good - but we still need more practice to shift this habit. I’m also concerned that it will never really change even if with all our hard work.

>>I’m also concerned that it will never really change even if with all our hard work.<<

When I get all worried about my son and his dyslexia
(and this varies from week to week, day to day
how well he reads an assignment or does on a test,
the ups and downs of having a LD child…)
I think of my good adult friend, Bonnie.

Bonnie is dyslexic and still works away at
making her way in a non-dyslexic world.
She can’t read when she fatigued or stressed.
She double and triple checks her numbers.
She runs spell check on everything and laughes
at some of the guesses the poor computer comes up with.

And…
as an adult she learned German and reads German fiction.
She is wonderfully artistic.
She is warm, understanding and a joy to be around,
one of those friends you can really count on in a crisis.
She has gone through some rough times and has triumphed.
She has raised the sweetest teenage boy.
She climbs rock faces with her husband.

Bonnie’s dyslexia has never gone away, it won’t be cured,
but she does live successfully with it and I think her
experiences with it have contributed to her resilience and
grounded personality. And to her quirky take on life
and creative spirit.

So I hang onto my friend Bonnie and I know that it is
all going to work out for my son and I try to make it
past the next graded test.

Anne

What a sweet post, Anne!

My child is mixed dominance for handedness. I wonder if there is a relationship between mixed dominance in handedness and other areas like visual. I know my child had APD, but she does sometimes confuse b and d, although she is only in first grade, so it is not unusual. I am wondering if there is anything else that could clue me in to a visual processing problem besides reversals.

Janis

Rod,
I have two dsylexic children who have done different types of remediation over the last 4 years with mixed results. I have recently become very interested in vision therapy and would like to know if you can refer me to any good web sites for further information. I’d also be interested in your experience with vision therapy.
Thanks

Hi Rod,

Noone ever suggested this to me and I see how it will help. I checked how my son writes d b he starts both with a line and then loops up. Any tricks for p?

I have noticed in spelling tests he will sometimes use p for b I know this is auditory but his hearing tests have been fine.

Thanks.

Hi Marion,

1. To make a “p,” start with the pencil at the midline, drop down below the baseline with the straight line, then retrace it up nearly to the top before going into a clockwise circle. As with b and d, he will then have to make a decision before starting the letter formation where to place the pencil, and which direction to go. Whether this will help him to differentiate “p” and “b” is debatable, however, but that’s the way he should be trained to make it.

2. If his confusion of p and b occurs only on spelling tests, when he is dictated a word, I wouldn’t worry. B and P are a vocalized/unvocalized “pair” in that both letters are made with the exact same movement of lips, tongue, etc., but the vocal cords are vibrated when making the “b” but not when making the “p.” This can be hard to hear when a word is said in isolation, which is why teachers dictating such lists usually use the words in sentences. (Put your thumb and forefinger on each side of your throat to feel your vocal cords vibrate. Some other similar pairs are t/d, k/g, f/v, ch/j and s/z. So, if he writes a note to his “teajer” he’s not as far off as he might appear at first glance.)

3. On the other hand, if he’s trying to write “push” and instead writes “bush” or if he reads “but” for “put” then he’s confusing the two symbols visually. If it doesn’t resolve after some concentrated work on linking sound and symbol (along with proper letter formation) then I would start wondering about an undetected vision problem.

Good luck…..Rod

Hi kim,

One website that lists developmental optometrists who will provide vision therapy is www.covd.org. They also have a search engine that will list all of their members in your area, if you put in your state.

If you find two or more close enough for your purposes, try to get a few parent references from them and actually call them up and see if they were satisfied, whether they saw significant changes in reading and other behaviors, whether it was expensive, how often they had to drive to their office, etc.

As for my experience, I’ll try to sum it up for you. I offer reading therapy and was able to convince a vision therapist to refer clients to me. These would generally be older kids who had vision problems which prevented them from picking up the reading basics, and even with their vision problem addressed were so far behind in reading that they needed help understanding how to break down the code we call English writing.

As I got these kids, I was impressed with how highly some of the parents spoke of the vision therapy results. I mean, they said it helped in no uncertain terms….not in all cases, but in several. So, when I ran into a kid who seemed to understand everything I was teaching him, but just couldn’t seem to get through more than a few paragraphs of print, I decided to refer him to the vision therapist’s developmental optometrist. There was indeed a problem found, and when he returned to me after a few visits he could finally deal with a full page of print.

What really surprised me, however, was that I ended up referring almost half of my clients that following summer….and all of them had a previously undetected vision problem. Now, I am one of the more skeptical people around, and the skeptic in me says “Yeah, right, Of course they found a problem. They get paid more when they find problems.”

This is why I continue to emphasize finding other satisfied parents before you decide on a vision therapist. It IS an area of practice that can easily be abused, and it IS a controversial practice at that. Having said that, I have worked with at least two kids who, by the time they got to me, were reading nearly at grade level and their only intervention had been the vision therapy. In both cases, the parents said their child had been reading well below grade level before the vision therapy. This impressed me a lot, skeptic though I may be.

Finally, for the past eight months or so I have worked mostly with kids who have come out of vision therapy. The kids who finished the therapy successfully are relatively easy to work with, but some of the ones who gave up on the vision therapy before reaching goals set by the therapist remain challenging to work with. We make a good team though, because after a few weeks of Phono-Graphix, they know they can read better, but they may still be struggling with small print or extended reading. When they are tired, or have read for awhile, they tend to revert to a careless, guessing pattern of reading. If I tell them (the kids) they need to give the vision therapy another shot, they are inclined to do so because they feel they are reading better. Also, their elevated reading skill makes them easier for the vision therapists to work with, as much of the therapy involves reading with various lenses, etc. A kid who is reading at too low a level becomes embarrassed, frustrated, etc., and tends to brush off the vision therapy in some cases.

So, in the sense of full disclosure, it could be said that I am now probably too tied into vision therapy to be objective about it. You will have to be the judge of that.

Enough already…..Rod

Can you handle one more suggestion on /b/ and /d/ reversals?

My son has dyslexia and developmental delays, including fine motor delays. His OT suggested having Matthew practice writing his letters on a large, wall mounted old fashioned chalk board. It had to be a chalk board — not a dry erase board — because he needs the tactile stimuli of the chalk dragging over the chalkboard.

Well not only did his handwriting improve by making the fine motor a gross motor activity, but it seems to have really helped his reversal problems. The principal says that Slingerland system has similar excercises. Jody

hi donna -

i teach first grade, and i often have children who mix up /b/ and /d/ when we begin the year. for the children who need extra help remembering which way the letters go, i send home an index card with the word “bed” written on it in large letters. i draw bed posts on the tops of the /b/ and the /d/ and have the children tape it to the corners of the desks where they do their homework. this helps them remember which way each letter goes. it has been helpful so far! noted at the bottom of this email is the resource where i found this idea! hope it helps!

julie

Johns, J.L. Improving Reading: A Handbook of Strategies (1997). Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co. (page 87)

As an adult dyslexic who still had a problem with d and b until recently, I suggest looking at: http://207.10.202.166/support/lwr/slide_1.html
This is the Laubach alphabet and I fell in love the first time I saw it. How great it would be if the letters were introduced with these pictures that represent the first phoneme and are simple enough to spell unlike elephant for e that most teachers are taught. (We won’t learn ph says /f/ for another three years.) They picked key words that actually look like the letter!

Richard Lavoie does the best job of describing this problem in the video The F.A.T. City Workshop. Before one starts school one learns that “directionality does not dictate objectivity.” No matter which way you turn an object, it does not change, right? Then you go to school and the teacher shows you a “stick and a ball” with the ball on the left and says it is a d. If it is turned the other way she calls it a b. Turn it upside down and it is a p. Since dyslexics have trouble with sequencing, we have trouble remembering which is which until these symbols have some meaning (phonomes) attached to them.