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Today’s Ask an Expert question was sent in by one of our fellow Mamás Blogueras, Tati from Wanna Jugar With migo. She´s concerned about her daughter having a hard time rolling her R´s.
Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
The perfect expert to answer this question is Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP, a bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional. You can read more about Dr. Kester, check out her previous posts and ask her a question (or any of the other experts on our panel) here.
My Daughter can’t Roll her R’s
“My daughter is almost 5 and she still can’t roll her r’s. How do I teach her to roll her r’s? Are there certain exercises that help? Do native children speakers have a hard time also?”
Hi Tati,
The trilled R is the latest sound to develop in Spanish. There are a number of resources for speech development in Spanish and they all indicate that children do not typically roll their r’s until 5 to 7 years of age. Your daughter is not behind but if you want practice the trilled r, here are a couple of ideas.
The trilled R is a D sound with the tip of the tongue moving. Try these drills:
The syllable level:
DRA DRE DRI DRO DRU
TRA TRE TRI TRO TRU
The word level:
PARDO, TARDE, CUERDA, GORDO
Hope this helps. Please keep us up-to-date on her progress.
Sincerely,
Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Bilinguistics Speech and Language Services, Austin, Texas
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I had the same problem when I was a little girl and my parents made me repeat this riddle:
r con re cigarro
r con r barril
rapido ruedan los carros
cargados de azucar al ferrocarril
I think it worked for me because I can roll my rs just perfect now
Suerte
This is a great question! I’ve been wondering about that myself but I know my son is too young to worry (he’s only 2 1/2). I do remember an experience of my cousin in Venezuela when we where growing up, he had a hard time with the Rs, not sure how old he was but he was old enough and he shouldn’t been having problems and he was in a special language session/class because of it and many other children had this same problem.
So I’m sure it’s normal to not roll the Rs so soon but I bet living in an English environment doesn’t help and it’s nice to have these drills to do with them. Thanks!
.-= Dariela´s last blog ..El Español -Parte 2- =-.
We did the same rime that Juliana is talking about, the funny thing is I never developed the skill for the strong RRRRR, my husband (gringo of course) can do it better then me!! so he teach it to my son, go figure!! but I can pronounce the normal rrr sound just fine, ufff!!!
Great question, my 5 year old is having problems with it too, I feel a lot better after reading this article, thanks.
.-= Silvia´s last blog ..Diente flojo? ya no/loose tooth? not anymore =-.
I wouldn’t worry too much if your daughter can’t roll her R’s, you’ll see that in the next few months she’ll suddenly master it – this is what happened with our youngest daughter who couldn’t roll her R’s – we kept encouraging her and making her practice words like ROJO and FERROCARRIL, until just suddenly a few months after her 5th birthday, it clicked. Our eldest daughter, on the other hand, could always roll her R’s.
I’m glad to have this question answered! Thanks so much! She just mastered the r in English, so she is trying to figure out if she uses the same r sound for Spanish. We have been using the drills and I think it has been helping. Thanks
.-= Tati´s last blog ..Build a Burrito Giveaway =-.