Is your student experiencing b-d confusion? Try these techniques to tame these notorious troublemakers. Fortunately, most of the letters of the alphabet have unique shapes. No matter which way you turn them, the letter i looks quite different from the letter x, and f looks different from k. There are two notorious troublemakers, though: the letters b and d. It is easy to see where the confusion comes in: flip the b and it becomes a d.
When should you take action? Beginning readers commonly confuse b and d. If your student is between the ages of three and seven, is just starting to read, and makes occasional reversal errors when reading, that is normal. It doesn’t mean that your student has dyslexia or a reading disability. Make a gentle correction and move on.
But if your student is eight years or older, has had prior reading instruction, and is making frequent b-d reversal errors, it is important to take action to solve the reversal problem.
As reading instructors, we have two jobs to do regarding reversals:
1. Try to prevent confusion. 2. Where confusion exists, resolve it.
Job #1: Prevent Confusion The first line of defense is to prevent confusion before it begins. The All About Reading program is carefully structured to minimize the likelihood of letter reversals. We teach the sounds of potentially confusing letters like b and d in separate lessons. The child’s task is simplified because he only has to make one new visual discrimination at a time. ...
