Mixing up b and d

Mixing up ‘b’ and ‘d’?

Mixing up the lower case letters, ‘b’ and ‘d’ can cause real frustration. Imagine not knowing whether you are reading or writing, ‘bent’ or ‘dent’ or ‘bib’ or ‘did’. A trip to an optician is a good first step. But if that’s done and it’s still an issue, it needs to be dealt with. 

It’s best to focus on recognising the correct direction of one of the letters, because that determines the other one straight away! 

So focusing on the letter ‘b’. 

‘b’ is written in the direction we read and write across a page, 

b b b b b b b b b b b b b

‘d’ is written the other way round, it’s gone off in a temper! 

d d d d

There are only a few other letters that are written the same way as ‘d’ 

a d g j q y z 

An image that may also help to remind children that ‘b’ is written this way is to think of a, 

footballer kicking the ball towards the net’ 

And the net is at the end of the writing line. 

Go to the free downloads section for some worksheets devoted to using the letters ‘b’ and ‘d’. I hope after practice, this is one difficulty that can be kicked off the ‘to do’ list!