I’m wondering if anyone would have an answer to this question? Why do young children confuse b and d? I’ve noticed this when I had taught my other girls to read and it seems that my 4yr old is following suit.
What in the world can I do to get my daughter not to confuse these two? I’ve tried sayings like B has a belly , D has a butt. LOL
I’ll have to use that analogy, lol . Maybe the memory trick would work better if you said B has a Butt and D Doesn’t.
Ya’know sounds association and such, lol, but I’m going to have to try that analogy on some of my reading students.
We ARE talking about lower case right?
Also if your child could work with B’s and D’s that also carry other characteristics. (B with the bump looking like a ball and a d with a dogs face on it) You could draw a stick person to illustrate the belly/butt of B and D, other wise I can’t see how remembering the words for that analogy would help. Depending on which way the person is standing, it could be either.
Also, you might try tracing the letters in the dirt, dry rice, sandpaper letters etc, until you get to the point that you could blind fold your child, and have them trace a letter and identify it
I knew them all in words, but in isolation I confused b and d, and sometimes other letters also. The only thing I didn’t have trouble with was L and 7, thank god!
B and D were the worse, I would mix them up until I was in highschool and even now, but a lot less rarely. I have trouble with flipped shapes and such. the <> also confused me, until in Inter. Algebra in college, I was taught to think of each as the tip on the number line.
I don’t know why, I just did.
Young children are not the only ones, ME TOO! I have confused lower case b and lower case d for years and they are the only letters I have a problem with. b and d are mirror images of each other. So are p and q but I always visualized q as being qu so I didn’t have a problem (weird). I had problems for years and would have to look at the word after I wrote it to find out which one it was. Not until my daughter’s 1st grade teacher taught her about the word bed did I get it straight. Now I think of the word bed and visualize a person sleeping in the bed and instantly I know that a person’s head is on the b so I know which letter faces which way. Think about it a person can’t sleep on a deb!
I like the butt story too but I would easliy confuse it becasue b had a butt but d has a belly abd both butt and belly begin with b. I always thought I was mildly dislexic, if there is such a thing. I regularly transpose numbers such as 593 could be 539 when I write it down. I think problems with d and b are common. Good luck
I think it’s so funny that as adults we see this as strange when in fact they are quite smart to assume b and d are interchangeable in a way.
Take an elephant for example (that is, envision it in your mind, I’m sure the zoo would mind if you just took one).
Have the elephant face to the right.
What is it? An elephant.
Have the elephant face to the left.
What is it? Still an elephant.
Have it do a handstand! (Again this is an elephant in your mind and those can do handstands! True fact!)
What is it? STILL an elephant.
So it’s kinda logical that b and d are the same, and could even be p or q, because honestly, it’s just the same letter facing different ways.
Children are smart and know that an elephant keeps being an elephant no matter which way he faces, now it’ sto us to teach them that with letters this is not the case 
I still see this often in 6 and 7 year olds in my school classroom. It’s normal. Of course you also have confusion with q and p as well!
Print a poster of Mr BD eyes and stick it in a place where you learn letters. It is nice to have for easy reference.
The Beady Eyes man is great! A fabulous visual!
lol Thanks for the link. That is so cute. I’ll print this out. I’m sure my daughter will like that. LOL
Thanks for the link! I will use it in my classroom! :clown:
Was also going to say about the elephant being an elephant no matter which way the picture is turned.
One way I had heard of to teach them is to teach the word “bed” - its simple and phonetical so easy to remember then the balls of the letters must face into the word to make it look like a bed with a headboard and foot of the bed - you can stretch a mattress over the balls of the letters too.
Hi,
I don’t know the reason why children minds are wired to confuse b and d, q and p and so on, but I know that several parents started teaching their children cursive and reading words in cursive so the children would stop confusing b and d ad the likes. There is research linking this types confusion with dyslexia. (I am not trying to say your children or child has this at all). Here an pdf article on why teach cursive first is best to deal with confusing b and d in little children. http://www.donpotter.net/PDF/Cursive%20First.pdf Also, if you teach the child to read with uppercase words it will stop the child from confusing the these letters. More letter recognition games will also help.
Have you tried Zoophonics program to address Alphabet teaching with your child. Zoophonics have alphabet cards and posters that has the animals drown on the letter such as the letter A would have an alligator drawn on it. http://www.zoo-phonicsathome.com/ Zoophonics has letter cards and word cards. I know alot of us using Doman method to teach but if you are trying to teach your child the alphabet for better recognition than try using the letter cards from zoophonics. Zoophonics teaches the child to read in a similar ad Dr Jones describes on their website. Another program that is similar to Zoophonics and the reading program of Dr Jones Accelerating Program is Child1st. The Child1st alphabets ares stylized letters, similar to the Zoophonic but this company don’t use animals to display the letters but other objects. They have Alphabets stories and alphamats. Child1st alphabet cards more like the letters are trying to tell a meaning. http://www.child-1st.com/new_site/Alphabet.html Child1st also have a writing program that goes with their alphabet cards. Actually its a whole curriculum that reaching and decoding as well. Both Child 1st and Zoophonics are for Visual, audio, and tactile learners.
Just thought I would try to give you some helpful tips.
Good luck