How to teach a child to say the letter "r"

Why is it hard to growl

The "p" sound is considered one of the most difficult to reproduce. To pronounce it correctly, you need:

raise the tip of the tongue to the upper teeth - while it should remain flat, like a pancake, and not taper from tension;
on exhalation, direct a powerful air stream to the tip so that vibration occurs.

For such manipulations, a child needs a developed speech apparatus, a strong root of the tongue and a bridle. Usually all this is formed by the age of six.

What prevents you from pronouncing the letter "r" correctly

Even with a prepared toolkit in their mouths, preschoolers manage to distort the ill-fated sound. There are several reasons for this.

1. Short sublingual ligament

How to teach a child to say the letter "r"

It is also called a bridle. It interferes with the free movement of the tongue and lifting it up. Most often, the problem is found in the hospital. If the sublingual ligament prevents the baby from sucking normally, the breast is cut. At a later age, the bridle is usually stretched with speech therapy exercises.

2. Impaired phonemic hearing

Phonemic hearing is the ability to correctly perceive and reproduce the sounds of speech. Normally, a baby already at three years old catches the difference between similar sounds - even if he does not know how to pronounce them.

Sometimes the development of phonemic hearing is delayed due to previous otitis media, adenoids, or other health problems. As a result, sound analysis and synthesis are disrupted: the child hears the sound wrong, passes it in speech, or replaces it with another.

3. Incorrect speech breathing

For correct pronunciation, you need to be able to control your exhalation. Not all children succeed in this: some raise their shoulders while inhaling, others breathe too shallowly and unevenly or do not know how to distribute exhalation according to words.

4. Deep bite

With a correct bite, the upper front teeth overlap the lower ones by about a third, and the rest are closed with each other. But if the bite is too deep, the upper ones cover the lower ones by more than half. It becomes more difficult to achieve the correct position of the tongue with an emphasis on the upper teeth.

How the letter "r" is distorted

On specialized resources Rotacism, the following main variants of the distortion of the "r" sound, or scientifically rotacism, are described:

Larting, or throat "r". It is not the tip of the tongue that vibrates, but the soft palate. This pronunciation is normal for French and German, but not for Russian.
Lateral "p". The tongue is pressed with one side to the upper teeth, the other side hangs down, and the tip does not vibrate. The result is something like "rl".
One-hit "r". Instead of vibrating, the tip of the tongue hits the hard palate once, making it look like an English r.
Nasal "r". On exhalation, the air flow does not pass through the mouth, but through the nose. In addition, the tip of the tongue is pulled back and does not participate in articulation. The phrase "Roma, open the doors!" will turn into "Ngoma, otkngoy dwengi!"
Kuchersky "r". And again, the vibration does not occur where it is needed, namely on the lips close together. The kid makes something like "whoa."
Pararotacism, or replacement of "p" with another sound. Instead of "baby" you hear "lebenok", "geebenok", "webenok", "yaebyonok" or even "fucking".
The missed "r". The kid simply avoids complications. It is not “fish” that speaks, but “yba”, not “glad”, but “hell”, not “thunder”, but “gom”.

What exercises can you do at home

Establishing the exact cause of rotacism and determining how to deal with it in your particular case is a task for a speech therapist. But if the child is not yet six or, due to certain circumstances, it is not yet possible to visit a specialist, you can try to curb the “r” yourself. To do this, you need to fulfill only three conditions.

Have patience. The process is unlikely to be quick, and the result is not easy. You may need months of daily practice.
Prepare the place. Speech therapy exercises are best performed while sitting together in front of a large mirror. The baby needs to clearly see the movements of the mouth - yours and yours. Alternatively, sit opposite each other, but then your student should have a large tabletop mirror.
Tune in to the game. Although mastering "p" is a serious matter, it is better to conduct classes in a playful way. Let the child perceive them as an excuse to have fun with mom or dad, and not as a hard and boring duty. In any case, the workout should take no more than 10-15 minutes a day, and even then with breaks.

And now let's go directly to the exercises.

Articulation gymnastics

You need to start the lesson with a warm-up of the speech apparatus. These exercises will warm up the muscles, strengthen the tongue, and help stretch the hypoglossal frenum.

1. Swing

We open our mouth wide and dangle our tongue up and down, touching either the upper or lower teeth. Then we hold the tip at the upper teeth for 15–20 seconds.

2. Cuckoo

The mouth is still wide open. We stick out the tip of the tongue and touch it to the upper lip, and then hide it behind the upper teeth.

3. Painter

Imagine that the tongue is a wide brush and carefully "paint" the teeth, cheeks, and upper palate with it.

4. Horse

We click on the upper palate with our tongue, as if the hooves of a horse were clicking.

4. Treat

Lick our lips with our spread tongue clockwise and counterclockwise.

5. Kitten

Imagine that there is a delicacy on the saucer - jam or ice cream. Now you need to stick out your tongue as far as possible and lick off the treat so that the tongue does not curl up into a tube, but remains flat.

6. Accordion

We lift the tongue up and "glue" it with the tip to the palate. Now, without lifting your tongue, open and close your mouth.

7. Hammer

We stretch our mouth in a smile and knock the tip of our tongue against the base of the front teeth, as if we were hammering in nails.

Exercises for setting the sound "r"

To pronounce "r" correctly, you need to start with other sounds.

1. Drum

We open our mouth wide and hit with the tip of our tongue behind the upper teeth, pronouncing the sound "d". Slow at first, then faster. And there it is already not far from "r".

2. Buzzbox

We pronounce the sound "g" and at the same time constantly pull the tip of the tongue deep into the mouth. Over time, "g" will turn into a weakly vibrating "p".

3. Snake

We repeat the sound "s-s-s" several times, after which we swallow our tongue and touch the tip of the palate.

4. Turkey

We stick out a wide tongue and perform back and forth movements, sliding the tip along the hard palate. At the moment when the tongue touches the alveoli - the tubercles behind the upper teeth, one-hit "p" is obtained.

5. Komarik

We open our mouth wide, raise our tongue up and rest it against the alveoli. And now for 10-15 seconds we are vigorously buzzing like a mosquito.

6. Motor

We put an index finger or a cotton swab under the tongue and drive vigorously back and forth, while doing the Komarik exercise.

Fixing the result

When the sound itself is already being produced, you need to bring its pronunciation to automatism. To do this, after articulatory gymnastics, instead of staging exercises, perform a complex to consolidate the skill.

We pronounce the letter "p" loudly and clearly several times.
We practice "r" through the consonants "d" and "t": "dra-dro-dru", "tra-tro-tru".
We remove the supporting “d” and “t” and work with “ra-ro-ru”.
We pass to the reverse syllables “ar-or-ur”, as well as to the position “r” between the vowels - “oru-ura-ara”. We repeat these combinations in different combinations from day to day, until the child succeeds in pronouncing "p" with vibration. Only then can you practice with words.
First, we practice words that begin with "r" or even "tr" and "dr" (grass, firewood, throne, drone, ladder, drape, hand, river, shirt). Then we take on nouns where "p" is in the middle or at the end (cow, cool, carpet, fence, ax).
We connect sentences, rhymes and tongue twisters with the letter "r".

When to take your child to a speech therapist

It is advisable to do this before the baby goes to school. Otherwise, a problem with pronunciation or perception of "p" can affect learning or communication with peers.

How long will the correction take? Everything is very individual: one needs three or four sessions with a specialist, while others need months of regular workouts at home under the supervision of a speech therapist. In any case, in adulthood, the process of correcting speech errors will require much more time and effort than in 6-7 years.