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Not sure where to put this, but the R sound…
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My almost 6 year old daughter has always said her R’s as a W, except when saying the name of the letter R. Not sure why that is, but it just is. I was wondering if anyone could suggest a good place to look for tips on how to work through this. I’m trying not to put too much emphasis on it, but if I’m not able to make a bit of progress soon, my mother is going to start putting pressure on her about it, again.
She has a tendency to nag and undo all of my hard work, whether it be potty training to y’s and nursing.
I’d really appreciate some advice here. Thanx in advance.
My son was in speech class at that age and the speech pathologist was nice enough to let me watch so I could help him at home. I was to correct him each time and encourage him to do it right. They sometimes watched their mouth movements in a mirror. Some sounds come later and I think r is one of them, also s and L. The last one for him was L and I was to help him say (ul) while curling his tongue up, rather than (la). So for r there may be a trick like saying (ur) instead of (ra) or something. I had to consistently correct and encourage.
At that age, my son had difficulty with /S/ and /SH/. I used Super Star Speech, available on CurrClick and it worked 🙂 There is a product available by the same author for the /R/ sound.
Blessings,
Heather
Thank you for the resource.
I’ve been able to get her off my back up to this point because it is a sound that’s usually mastered by the age of 6, but she will be 6 in August. I’ve tried working with her on it, but she doesn’t seem to be able to say the in the begining or middle of a word. She can say aaarrrr correctly, but when it comes to saying words such as right or her name Inara, it comes out as wight or Inawa & so on. I will say it did take a good bit of practice for her to say aaarr. So I guess I’m going to have to keep at it. I’ll also say, that I’m having to work w/ almost no budget right now, as DH just got his new job and has been out of work for a few months now, so it’s kinda stressful for me there.
We are using Help Me Talk Right with my son. However, it’s $32 and I’m not sure I consider it worth it. It’s only 90 pages, and there are too many actvities which have nothing to do with speaking. A friend also sent me some information, so I’ll try to summarize all of it here.
Overview: First, instructions are given for teaching her how to say the /r/ sound. Next, the lessons focus on saying /r/ with vowel sounds. Then, the lessons focus on saying /r/ in different positons in the words: initial /r/, final /r/, and medial /r/. Finally, it’s practice words, practice word pairs, practice sentences, and practice conversation.
Each of the following paragraphs is a lesson. Let her get the hang of the lesson before moving on to the next, and don’t try to get her to say the /r/ sound correctly in regular speech until she’s learned to do all of these things.
The key to the /r/ sound is the tongue. It points towards the roof of the mouth without actually touching it. I think the book calls it “making a muscle” with the tongue. Do this part with a mirror; let the child see your tongue while making the sound, then have her practice making a muscle with her tongue. You can put PB or jelly on her palate, just behind her front teeth, to help teach her to lift her tongue by licking it off. We didn’t have to do that. The point is actually to tense the tongue, but lifting it at first helps the kids who are having issues.
The book suggests making the child produce a smile while practicing /r/ because that makes it impossible to say /w/. (We didn’t really focus on this.) Demonstrate first. To produce the /r/ sound, start by saying “aaaaah.” Then raise the tongue while saying it, and that changes the sound to /r/. Let her exaggerate the sound. The book says that we’re also training their hearing. Children who have been pronouncing words incorrectly HEAR them as correct, so an exaggerated /r/ helps re-train the ears.
Practice saying /r/ after long vowel sounds: /ār/, /ēr/, /īr/, /ōr/, /ūr/. Do this the same as before: Begin by saying the vowel sound for a second or two, then raise the tongue to produce /r/. She may need a small pause between the vowel sound and the /r/ at first.
Move on to this lesson once the child can say /r/ after long vowels consistently. Practice saying initial /r/ with long vowel sounds: /rā/, /rē/, /rī/, /rō/, /rū/. Keep practicing the previous.
Practice saying initial /r/ with short vowel sounds: /ră/, /rĕ/, /rĭ/, /rŏ/, /rŭ/. Keep practicing the previous.
Practice words which end in /r/: air, are, door, ear, chair, spider, jar, fire, hair, bear. As before, a small pause between the vowel sound and the /r/ may be necessary at first.
Practice pairing words which end in /r/: here are; here ear; here fire; here jar.
Practice words which begin with /r/: rat, robin, ring, rock, ran, roots, reach, race, ride.
Practice pairing words which being in /r/: reach rock, reach robbin, reach ride.
Practice words which have /r/ in the middle: carry, arrow, berries, dairy, marry. Pause between syllables if necessary. If she is better at initial /r/, have her say “ca-rry.” If she’s better at final /r/, have her say “carr-y.”
Practice simple sentences with initial /r/ words.
Practice simple sentences with final /r/ words.
Practice /r/ blends in words: br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, spr, str, tr, -rl. It’s okay to pause between the consonant sound and the /r/. b-rain, g-rape, d-rain, g-r-l.
Then it’s just practice, practice, practice. We’re about at this point, and I just plan on having him read to me every day, with a focus on pronouncing the /r/ sound. There was also a suggestion in the book to set aside time during play, or just having a conversation, where the child is expected to pronounce /r/. So, we teach the child, and then we keep practicing. I guess there may come a point where we need to start correcting all the time, but I hope practice will get us there without it.
Hope this helps, and saves you some money.
I used a book called Staight Talk (written by Marisa Lapish) with my daughter. It includes an Age-Sound Chart and the approximate age at which the R sound should be aquired is 7 1/2.
Do not push your daughter (or let your mom :-). If she can make the sound in isolation the rest will probably come. The stages of learning a new sound are being able to say a sound 1) in isolation 2) in syllables 3) in words 4) in sentences and finally 5) in coversation.
I also used Super Star Speech and as Heather suggested it was helpful. It contains games and that is really the best way of working on her sounds. When I took my daughter to speech therapy (she has a lateral lisp which is one of the hardest things to correct) they played games! You could make a board game where when she lands on the R she has to “growl” 5 times.
Super Star Speech has a website that you could check out. Maybe there are some free resources.
Her name would be hard to say because she is going from an N sound to an R sound and your tongue is in very different positions. It would probably be easier for her to start with a word that goes from T to R because the tongue essentially stays in the same position.
I know speech issues can be very anxiety producing because you wonder if they will ever get it. Be encouraged and just work with her gently.
I have these bookmarked to try later with my dd:
http://www.mommyspeechtherapy.com
Mommy Speech therapy was free the last time I checked. Let’s Grow Speech has some free products and some inexpensive.
Thank You So Much!!
I understand completely how articulation an be affected by hearing as I myself had problems in that area as a small child.
Due to a series of ear infections resulting in ruptured eardrums as a baby, I spent a good deal of childhood trying to convince my mom I really couldn’t hear her the majority of the time she was speaking to me, when I didn’t see what she was saying. In first grade I was officially diagnosed at school and it was determined that I was atleast 50% deaf in my left ear and almost completely deaf in my right ear, except when my right decided to occasionally work, resulting in crying fits due to the discomfort of the “loud noises”. The majority of this was eventually corrected w/ an adnoidectomy and tubes in my ears.
Due to this concern, I did have her hearing checked and it was determined that she doesn’t have any significant concerns in that area. In fact, I believe the Dr. thought I was projecting on my daughter, when all I was trying to do was shut my own mom up.
I agree with Jenny for the age issue. I was in speech class in 2nd grade because of the same thing. The most vivid memories I have of that class and what really helped me was a diagram of the placement of the tongue while producing the sound /r/ and a mirror. Plus practice, practice, practice. 🙂 I realize kjdevore is summarizing and is right about the tip of the tongue pointing towards the top of the mouth, the most important part is the sides of the tongue touching just behind the molar area. That’s where the visual really helped me.
Most importantly, the ages are a standard. Not every child got the memo on what stage he/she was supposed to be at! Your daughter will get there with you guidance, love, and patience.
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