/r/ you ready? The /r/ phoneme is one of the later developing sounds and can be a challenge to correct. Typically, what I've seen during therapy is that the students master the initial /r/ first, then master the blends, but take longer to correct the vocalic /r/ (the /r/ preceded by a vowel). The “er” requires very precise fine motor speech movements. The components of lateral stability, posterior lingual movement and timed tension of the tongue are needed to approximate the /r/ successfully. Most students use rounded lips for their /r/ sounds, not understanding that it is really a "tongue sound."
As with any speech sound, remediation requires practice and practice should be done with an adult who can tell whether the /r/ is being produced correctly or not. Watch that your child's lips are not rounding for the /r/ and if they do round, remind your child that /r/ is a tongue sound. On this page are /r/ and vocalic /r/ pictures. Have fun practicing the sounds while playing a board game or a card game. Have your child say a word, phrase or sentence before taking a turn. If they are at the sentence level or above, play games that require reading (like Sorry or Quelf Jr.). Make sure they read each card aloud using their best speech. Many children have to read aloud for a few minutes a night as part of their regular homework. Ask your child to pay special attention to the words with their sounds as they read. If they are able to, have them underline or highlight the words before they read. Take advantage of conversational time to reinforce good speech. While your child tells you about a movie they saw or a play-date they had, remind them that you're listening for good speech. Use that short time to correct any error words. The more practice the better, but of course we want your child to stay motivated and very invested in improving their own speech. Be specific about the times you are focusing on speech. During other parts of the day, it would be helpful to model proper speech production yourself. If your child says, "Mom, wheaw is the caw pawked?" You can say, "The carrr is parrrked over therrre." By repeating it back correctly and stressing the targeted sound, you're providing your child with a subtle, but effective reminder. To the right and below are some materials that can be used to practice the /r/ phoneme. The photos in the picture gallery are from Google Images and their originating web-site is noted. Tic Tac Toe ER AIRTic Tac Toe - ER ARTic Tac Toe - TH R S SH CHPractice these /r/ words. Make up a silly sentence using each pairwhisper spider fur turkey
cursive teacher germs concern jumper mermaid squirt worm fern gopher dresser work remember stinker tiger lurk vampire Ireland fireman campfire hire umpire pliers liar buyer sapphire admire flier star dark card garbage army guard bark Charlie tart heart sparkle start park market alarm arm garlic farm art harp surfboard shorts port short score sport sword fort thorn porch popcorn floor story forest s'mores four fear dear steer tear disappear weird steer pyramid cafeteria hear cheerleader beard |
Practice your /r/ Sound in
|