Photo by christopher.woo

Photo by christopher.woo

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

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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