OnTrack Reading

A child who reverses b and d will find this method effective whether his b and d reversal problem involves either reading or writing those letters, or both.

About a third of the younger clients that I work with have trouble telling b from d when they’re reading. Most of them have had a well-meaning teacher or parent explain at least one or two of the various methods for keeping them straight. Around here, making the word bed with both hands out front of them seems to be the most popular, but they still misread their b’s and d’s with regularity.

I’ve told the following method to all of them over the past ten years or so, and within a week or so, they usually have it down provided they make one significant change in writing behavior. It’s not my own method. I got it from Romalda Spalding’s book, The Writing Road to Reading years ago. It works best if a child is willing to make the writing change, but it will work for reading even if they don’t.

Reading b and d

It’s simple really, and it’s also primarily tactile, so they don’t have to interrupt their reading by putting their hands in the air and they don’t have to switch from thinking about the storyline to thinking about a bed all of a sudden.

You have your child say /b/ (the sound, remember) and then you have him look in a mirror while he says it. Do it yourself also, and point out the straight line (more or less) that your lips make as you press them together to say /b/. Then show him the letter b and tell him that as he’s reading along a line of print, when he comes to a b he runs into the line first, so he should make the line with his lips, and say /b/.

What about the circle? This one is just a bit tricker. Have your child say /d/ (again, just the sound) and pay attention to his tongue. Ask him if he feels it curled up inside his mouth, the tip pressing against the roof of his mouth. Explain that he’s making a big circle in there, with the tongue making the bottom of the circle and the roof of his mouth the top. To give him a visual, tell him a big gum ball would fit in there perfectly.

Now show him the letter d and tell him that when he’s reading along a line of print and comes to the letter with the circle first he should make the circle in his mouth and the /d/ sound will come out.

I’ve had more than one parent return to my office a week later and say something like, “We’ve fought the b/d issue for years, but that worked!” And it doesn’t get in the way of comprehension like most mnemonic methods likely do.

Writing b and d

But the really great part of this method is that it works when writing too, provided you take the time to teach your child to make the letter d by starting with the circle first. Most children already write the letter b starting with the line, though after that all bets are off on how they’ll do the circle. However, about half of those who struggle with b and d are writing the letter d the same way, by starting with the line. For the writing side of this to work, you have to change that. Spalding has excellent information on forming all letters in her book, by the way.

Essentially you need to teach your child to form the following letters, preferably in this order: c, o, a, d, g and finally q. Your child forms a c starting at about 2 o’clock on a clock face and finishes at 4 o’clock. (This is straight out of Spalding, incidentally.) After the c is being properly formed, show your child how to extend the motion to make an o. Then extend it further to make an a, then even further to make a d. Finally, show your child how to extend the a into first g and then q.

So, assuming you’ve got the letters being formed properly, all you now need to do is tell your child that when he’s saying the /b/ sound he should notice that his lips are forming a line as he says it, so write the letter that he starts with a line.

Conversely, if he’s saying the /d/ sound, tell him to notice that he’s forming the circle in his mouth (for the gum ball) and that he should then write the letter that he starts with a circle.

This is primarily tactile, requiring little thought after just a bit of practice, and will become habitual, or automatic behavior, quite quickly if you try it. Just make sure and have your child do a fair amount of writing to so he has a chance to build the habit in the writing direction also.

I reiterate, this method does work. I have never seen it fail and I’ve needed to use it with about a third of the 200 or so children I’ve worked with in the past several years. Even if I’m not going to be working with a child, I often teach it during testing if I see a problem because it is so intuitive that there is a reasonable chance that it will stick, particularly if a parent is present to hear the explanation as well.

The next Tidbit covers the one rule of English pronunciation that I explicitly teach to every client. I have changed my position a couple of times on whether to teach it or not, but have now concluded that it is exceptionally useful when my clients reach the multisyllable portion of the curriculum, particularly when the words reach three or more syllables. That is also the point at which they are most likely to assimilate the rule, so that is when I teach it. The rule governs the pronunciation of the letter “c.”

Next: The Sounds of the Letter c, or return to the OnTrack Reading Home Page.