Those pesky (yet necessary) "R"s

zzzzz...okay, WAKE UP! Yes, the topic of this post is rrrrreally about the /r/ sound (I crack myself up). As cute as that little Elmer Fudd voice is on your sweet seven year old; her peers may not feel the same way, not for long anyway.

So, I'm kind of on this /r/ high right now. Mostly because I just had a client learn his /r/ sound for the first time today! Strap on your seat belt and lets learn our "R"s!!

One thing you must know about the dreaded /r/ is that there is no "rrrright" way to produce it. This makes it a bit tricky to teach; but there ARE more opportunities to nail it too!

Way #1 80% of us say our /r/ like this: Back of tongue raises and moves back to our upper back teeth.

How? Rub the insides of your molars with your tongue on both sides. now pretend that you have peanut butter on the insides of your molar. The back of your tongue needs to lift up and spread out like a butterfly to touch the "peanut butter" on both sides at the same time! Go ahead, try it.

Way#2 20% of us say our /r/ like this: Tip of tongue rolls upward and back pointing towards the back part of the roof of our mouth.
How? Just how it sounds...instruct child to point their tongue tip up and to the back of their palate. Sometimes a mirror helps with this one.

TIP #1: If a child is too young to understand these instructions you can give them some tactile (feel) help by touching the insides of their molars and the back of the tongue with a gloved finger or tongue depressor. If a child is still too young to understand what you are asking, they probably don't need to be working on their /r/ yet:)

TIP #2 Another trick that often works if a child is having a hard time moving their tongue back far enough is to have the child place a tongue depressor laterally (long ways side to side), as far back in their teeth as possible. Then ask them to pull their tongue back so that it doesn't touch the stick at all. Try producing the /r/ with keeping this in mind.

NOTE: as always, make sure that a child doesn't have excessively large tonsils. This alone can make it difficult and uncomfortable for them to put their tongue back far enough. If you have any concerns about large tonsils, please see your family ENT.

Let me know if you have any scenarios that you want to discuss. I'm not going anywhere!

Sarahv