A while back I wrote about my daughter Vanessa having a hard time pronouncing the letter R. She’s gotten better at it, but now it’s her 4-year-old brother’s turn to learn how to roll his R’s and she’s doing a great job teaching him. He still has ways to go, but as with my daughter, I’m not really worried about it because typically Spanish speaking children don’t learn to do it until they’re between 5 and 7 years old.

I helped Vanessa learn how to roll her R’s using rhymes and tongue twisters, and a few days ago I promised her I would look for more so that we could use them with her little brother. Check out some of the news I found…

But first, let me share some advice from one of our very own experts, Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP, a bilingual speech language professional, who suggested the following to one of our readers a few years back regarding her daughter’s trouble rolling her R’s:

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

Here are the new rhymes and tongue twisters I found that are perfect to teach kids to roll their R’s.

RHYMES

• Por la calle de Carretas
  pasaba un perrito;
  pasó una carreta y
  le pisó el rabito.
  ¡Pobre perrito,
  cómo lloraba
  por su rabito!

• El burrito barrigón
  ayer se dio un resbalón
  por andar detrás de un carro
  se cayó dentro del barro
  ¡Qué burrito picarón
  el burrito barrigón!

• Corre que te corre,
  corre sin parar.
  Corre, corre, corre,
  que si tú no corres
  ¡seguro te atraparán!

TRABALENGUAS (or Tongue Twisters)

• El perro de San Roque no tiene rabo
  porque Ramón Rodríguez se lo ha robado

• Un burro comía berros
  y el perro se los robó,
  el burro lanzó un rebuzno
  y el perro al barro cayó.

Vanessa has always had a hard time pronouncing the letter R. Lately, though, she’s become keenly aware that she can’t roll her Rs. Out of the blue, she’ll repeat words like perro and carro and rápido and ask me if she’s saying them right. Unfortunately, she’s not. But I’m not freaking out just yet because I’ve read this is normal since Spanish speaking children typically don’t learn to roll their R’s until they’re between 5 and 7 years old. This means Vanessa still has a little over a year!

In all seriousness though, she’s not happy that she can’t do it and so I’ve been wanting to help her practice how to roll her R’s the last few days. Yesterday, I decided to do some research and now I have a few exercises to use with her that I want to share with you.

For starters, here’s the advice one of our very own experta, Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP, a bilingual speech language professional, told one of our readers about three years ago regarding her daughter’s trouble rolling her R’s:

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

I also found these rhymes and tongue twisters recommended for learning how to roll Rs. Check them out:

RHYMES

• El cielo está enladrillado
  El cielo está enladrillado,
  quién lo desenladrillará.
  El desenladrillador que lo desenladrille,
  buen desenladrillador será.

• El otro día me caí
  del ferrocarril
  al lado de un barril.
  El barril tenia ruedas
  ¡Qué raro barril!
  Y con las ruedas
  caí en el barro marrón!
  Fui a mi casa, me bañé rápido
  y dije todo otra vez

• Erre con erre, guitarra,
  erre con erre, barril.
  ¡Mira que rápido ruedan
  las ruedas redondas
  del ferrocarril!

TRABALENGUAS (or Tongue Twisters)

• Borracho un ratón robó
  un ramo de rosas rojas.
  El rabo se le enredó
  y rodó de rosa en rosa.

 
• El ratón se come un bombón.
  Se viene un gato marrón a comer el ratón.
  Pero el bombón reventó, ¡BOM!

 
So I’m going to go ahead and practice these with Vanessa. We’ll see how it goes. Promise to keep you posted.

Got any rhymes or tongue twisters of your own? Please share!