My daughter (3) is reading phonetically (not fluent yet, but she can sound out almost every word), but she tends to confuse letters that are visually similar such as “d” and “b”, “n” and “h” , “n” and “u”, “d” and “a” (“a” in a font that looks likes a “d” with a shorter line at the right). She is perfectly able to separate the sounds auditively (in beginning and ending sounds, etc), so it seems to be only a visual problem. In several words she is self-correcting the false letter, such that the word matches a known real word. Did anyone also had such a problem? Will this problem vanish alone, when she gets a more proficient reader or should I do kind of “special exercises” with her to differentiate the single letters.
It’s a very common problem. It will go away with practice but to avoid frustration there are a few thinks to try.
Firstly make sure the font she uses is big enough and clear enough. Print your own books if you need to to ensure the print is big enough.
Introduce some handwriting. Plenty of kids just don’t realize the letters are different because they have never looked all that closely. OD some writing in sand. Or write on a white board. Make some sand paper letters or just write in shaving cream. The more they write those letters the more they will realize they are similar and different.
Play games using Just those pairs of letters. A favourite is give the kid a fly swat and they smack the written letter as fast as they can as you call them out. Be sure to mix them up at times.
There are little sayings and tricks to help remember these letters but I have never found them to be more useful than these methods.
Every child I’ve worked with on reading has a problem with b and d. The others are child dependent. One of the things you can do is print the problem letter flash cards in various fonts. Place a bunch of the same letter in different fonts and 1 that is not that letter but one that she often mistakes for that lette on a table. So put a bunch of “Bs” on the table and add one “D”. Ask her to find the letter that doesn’t belong.
For “b” and “d” specifically, I tell the kids that a d is a ball then a bat and a b is a bat then a ball. I trace over the letter with a marker as I explain it. Of course, Manda always has great ideas.
I love Meet the Letters by Preschool Prep. They flip the letters all around, upside down, etc, and really get the kids to understand. I’m not saying this to brag on my kids, but I think it’s the reason why my kids never confused letters at all because my niece used it too and she never did either. It’s “slow” compared to regular cartoons but your DD won’t need to sit through the whole thing, just those specific letters. It’s not that expensive and I would seriously consider buying it just to give her practice in those letters. Look up a clip on youtube and see if you think she’ll like it. If she DOES like it, I wholeheartedly love their other stuff too! Sight words, etc, and it’s word investing in the flashcards for extra reinforcement, unless the app is enough for your kid. They weren’t around when my kids were younger.
The flyswatter game sounds super cute, too!
I remember using Starfall to teach letters and letter sounds, it took us about 2.5 months to master everything. It is free and I highly recommend it: http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/load.htm?f
I agree with TMT regarding PSP videos. You can also use the iPhone/ iPad app of Meet the Letters. I think it is as effective as the DVDs because DS learned his sight words using only their apps, so I assume that is applicable to the alphabet too.
Thank you very much for the many ideas. I will try them the next days. Regarding the “Meet your letters”-DVD, it looks fantastic, but it is only available in English, as so many of that awesome EL stuff. We are only reading in German and I think English letter names would totally confuse her, but anyway that’s a great idea for all english-reading people with similar problems.