If your student shows any hesitation over the letters b and d, more review is in order! Please do not proceed to the next lessons until these letters are clear in your pupil’s mind. Go over the word lists again (and again, as often as needed), having your student read and spell words that feature b and d.

Let Your Student Do the Mental Work

Learners should be allowed time to think through pronunciations and spellings and correct themselves if necessary. Be patient! Let your student do this mental work! If he fails to detect an error, don’t advance the pencil to the next word on the list until he makes a correction. Make a tiny pencil mark next to the problematic word or make a mental note to yourself to revisit that word soon. Reviewing words before introducing a new pattern generally is helpful to your student.

Reviewing the previous lists will usually take your student only a few minutes. If it takes longer than that, more practice on earlier lessons may be in order. Sometimes a student is having a bad day; other times he just needs to review more intently. Mastery of each lesson is a critical precursor to the lessons that follow. From this point forward the lessons will involve less review. You will have to use your judgment to decide whether or not to take a step back and spend more time reviewing.

Equivalent Letters

If you have a student who is confusing the letters b and p or d and t, please refer to the discussion on equivalent letters on the Basic Terms page. The information on voiced and voiceless letters may also be of help (see Basic Terms page).