I’ve noticed some of my students would often get the lower case letters “b” and “d” mixed up.
They’re fine while writing the same words in upper case; and would get it wrong if given a worksheet to write the corresponding lower case alphabet when given the upper case letter.
Can anyone share a good mnemonic that you use to help your students remember?
10 comments
‘bed’ seems to be the most common one.
I have them practice stroke order (書き順/kakijun). b is line-circle (sen-maru), and d is circle-line (maru-sen).
It’s the left-right thing which messes people up. We don’t use “q” so much, so q-p don’t become a problem. By emphasizing stroke order, they can distinguish them better.
Japanese has a similar thing with ツ and シ, which look fairly similar at first, but tsu has a down stroke, shi has an up stroke, and kids never really mix them up.
b points to the right, and if you add the b it turns into bright, which you have to be to grasp the nuances of a new language.
d points to the left, and if you add the d it turns into dleft, which is not a word, and you would have to be not very bright to use the word dleft.
Works like a charm.
I have them hold up their hands in thumbs up pose, your left-hand looks like b, while the right looks like a d.
Bonus: thumbs down becomes p and q.
Make two thumbs up with your folded fingers facing you.
The left hand forms a b shape.
The right hand forms a d shape.
And since we usually read left to right, the letters are in correct order. b before d.
Tell them that dogs are always chasing cats. The phonic for cat (c) always has the the dog (d) coming after it. Model writing the c and continuing straight into the d.
(Wilson, 2011)
I mostly use the bed one too. One student of mine showed me another interesting one. They could remember because lower case ‘b’ was capital ‘B’ with one less bump.
Which I’m sure I knew as a kid but was mind blowing to me to realize.
At least my in my classes the books have them draw an excessive tail on lowercase “d”s so I do d- has a tail like a dog, and b- circle like a ball.
One thing that can help when teaching things that can be easily mixed up is to teach only one of them first rather than teaching them together. So if you would drill them on only “b” words without the use of “d” until they have it down, then add “d” after that. The same goes when teaching opposite words such as left/right. In this instance it may not be feasible since the alphabet is usually taught together, but if you have control over the curriculum it may be worth doing.
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