My Literacy Memory

In kindergarten I always struggled to remember which direction a ‘b’ went and which direction a ‘d’ went. When it came to revising the alphabet or speaking I knew that ‘b’ was for ball and ‘d’ was for dog, however once it became time for diary writing or any various other writing activities I started to get really confused between the two letters. There were many times were I wrote a ‘b’ where a ‘d’ should have been and vise versa. I got into trouble from the teacher for doing this numerous times. The only time I managed to work out which direction the ‘b’ or ‘d’ should go was when it was written in front of me.

One day when the rest of the class was having free time the teacher approached me and asked “Nastassja could you please sit down at your desk”. At the time I was a bit annoyed because I was having fun playing barbies but I followed her instruction and sat down. Then she showed me a sentence I wrote in my journal which she had just marked. She underlined the word I though said bat at the time and told me it said “dat not bat and dat isn’t a word.” “It’s supposed to say bat” I argued. Then she pointed to the word she had written in blue pen beside it and said “this is how you spell bat.” This made me feel a little embarrassed, as I could feel my face starting to get hot.

“You get your “b’s’ and ‘d’s’ confused a lot don’t you sweetie.” Lost for words I just nodded. “Well I am going to teach you a trick” she said whilst putting her left hand in a thumbs up position. This is a “b, can you make a b with this hand” she asked as she touched my left hand. So I made a ‘b’ shape with my left hand. “Now Nastassja look at your hand and remember that b goes behind the line.” She then put down her left hand and placed her right hand in the thumbs up position. “This is a ‘d, can you make a d?” she asked so I made a ‘d’ with my right hand. “Now, I want you to remember that ‘d’ goes in front of the line.” Then she asked me to repeat what she had just told me, so I did. After this, she showed me a few examples of where I had previously got my ‘b’s’ and ‘d’s’ confused. Finally, she gave me a work sheet on the letter ‘b’ to complete and handed me a sheet on the letter ‘d’ to read out loud. Whilst I was reading this to her she got me to circle the letter ‘d’. Once I completed this I was aloud to go play again.

 

For a while after that when I got stuck with writing my ‘b’s’ and ‘d’s I would make my hands do the thumbs up position and say “b goes behind the line, d goes in front of the lin.” After a while I didn’t have to look at my hands and I could say the saying to myself in my head. Eventually I didn’t even have to say it to myself in my head as writing gradually became easier and easier. From that moment during play time and on I very rarely got my ‘b’s’ and ‘d’s’ mixed up.