Ask anyone who has been trying to learn to speak Spanish for a while what's the most difficult part is and you'll undoubtedly hear this: "Rolling my R's!" Am I right? And, believe it or not, this is a problem even for native speakers! My children's first language is Spanish and they still had trouble learning how to roll their R's, that's why I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what I could do to help them out and today I'm sharing my findings.
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For starters, you need to know that it's totally normal for bilingual children to not know how to roll their R's until they're between 5 and 7 years old. So no need to freak out if your 3-year-old doesn't know how to do it.
I also learned that one of the best ways to help your children is by practicing with rhymes like the following:
-
El cielo está enladrillado
quién lo desenladrillará.
El desenladrillador que lo desenladrille,
buen desenladrillador será. -
Corre que te corre,
corre sin parar.
Corre, corre, corre,
que si tú no corres
¡seguro te atraparán! -
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! -
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! -
Por la calle de Carretas
pasaba un perrito;
pasó una carreta y
le pisó el rabito.
¡Pobre perrito,
cómo lloraba
por su rabito!