A Little Help with /r/

I have most definitely dropped the ball on my poor blog. I feel a little guilty, but I've been told guilt is only productive for about ten minutes. I should be over it by the time I'm finished writing. :)

I was working with a student today whose profile is fairly complex. We were working on /r/ using the "ka-la" technique. While we had the "ka" piece down the "la" was proving more of a challenge. I think this is because we previously worked on /l/ and curling the tongue way back is counter intuitive, given all our work on tongue placement for /l/. We have tried play-dough, used a mirror, flashlights, flossers, and the jumbo mighty mouth by Super Duper Publications. It was tough.  This student needed some feedback that just wasn't happening.  I pulled out the mini mouth finger puppet also from Super Duper Publications. I asked the student to simultaneously move the mini puppet tongue while producing the "ka-la."  Wonder of wonders it worked. My student could see and feel what the tongue should be doing for this method!

Now, how to maintain the connection for home practice? I whipped out some red felt, a red pipe cleaner, and my trusty glue gun. Voilà! After trimming off the annoying glue threads and trimming around the felt a bit, we made sure it worked well with a few trials (it did!).  My student was super excited and now has a puppet to practice with at home.  Phew! Whatever it takes, right?