"b" and "d" reversal

I used to work at Sylvan Learning Center tutoring reading and saw many kids with this reversal even up to age 10 or so.  It’s common.  I don’t know if there is a “CM” answer, but I personally would move forward.  Otherwise you could be stalled for a long time.  Of course, 5 years old is young to be doing lessons anyway, so you could always just take a break and see what happens if you pick it back up in a few months.

One thing that we did at Sylvan that helped many children was to give them a tactile/visual cue.  For a right handed student, have her stick up the pointer finger of the left hand and tuck the fingers and thumb into a ball, so that it looks like a ‘b’.  Have the child memorize that this is ‘b’.  Then, anytime she can’t remember which letter is which, she can quickly make the letter with her hand and check.  Once I had taught this, if the child made a reversal, I would just point to her hand and she would quickly check and correct.  For a left handed student do it with the right hand, but teach that it makes a ‘d’.  Then they can use it when reading or writing.

I saw many kids use this trick for a few months, until it was habit and then they just imagined the hand, without having to actually make the letter and look at it. 

Definitely move forward, my 8 yr old still does it, she’s a lefty and has a hard time with handwriting anyways, but those always throw her off. We also do the b and d formed with the hands, we also repeat that little b looks like Big B (as far as the curve pointing the same way, not like little d which is opposite). Just keep correcting, some day it will click:)

I love the trick of making b with the left hand. I read somewhere that to children b,d,p,&9 all look the same just as a spoon turned in any manner still looks like a spoon. I moved on but still correct on occasion.

For my daughter (who is now 13 & has outgrown the reversals), we used the word “bed” & a visual to remind her. She knew that the word “bed” began with the sound for “b” and ended with the sound for “d,” so she would make a “b” with her left hand (pointer finger up, the others curled in a circle); at the same time, she would make a “d” with her right hand (again, pointer finger up, the others curled in a circle).

She would then touch the curled fingers together to make it look like a bed….well, if you were looking at a bed with a headboard and footboard from the side! That’s what we decided it looked like. All of this was to make her think “bed” and to then visualize (from left to right) a “b” and a “d.” Then she could tell how she should write the letter she wanted to write, either “b” or “d.” (Or which letter sound to make as she read a word.)

This is just what worked for her, and she used that little “bed” visualization probably until she was 9 or 10. I would see her put up her hands in that position while she was writing all sorts of things, from schoolwork to a letter to a friend.

I used the b shaped Left hand with one of my children as well.  With one of my other children we use the cues “stick letter” for b and “2o’clock” letter for d, since this was drilled into her in tutoring.  In b you draw the stick first and then the ball, in d you start your pencil at 2 oclock and draw the ball and then the stick.

My 9 almost 10 yo still does this, as does my 7 yo.  It’s probably just normal, after all, she’s just 5 yo, but something to also watch for is mixed dominance, which my older one has, but not the younger.  I think we’ll get there eventually.  I have tried all the tricks mentioned above to no avail.  Had the posters up.  Even made little bat and ball b’s, sand paper letters.  It also affects her reading “bog” instead of “dog”. 

Recently I stumbled upon another free resource… little picture for b d reversal, called MR Beady eyes.  It’s from boost for readers.com Scroll down to get the pdf(Hope it’s okay to post websites here ) Funny enough this seems to be working for both of them. 

I think patience with all these things goes a long way in solving them too 😉