I remember being in the first grade and reading my very first tongue twister…
She sells seashells by the seashore.
I also remember giggling at how silly I sounded when my teacher had asked us to say it 1o times fast! I also remember that everyone wanted to try it out, nobody was afraid to make a mistake, and the level of engagement between my fellow classmates and the teacher was infectious. Obviously so… I can still remember that day as clear as can be.
Fast forward many, many, years and I am now in the position of teacher and like most teachers I know, I draw from the positive experiences I had as a student and try to emulate the best teaching practices I remember learning from as a child. After all, it is because of those teachers and the experiences I had that made me want to become a teacher… that and the love of learning and the absolute joy I get from guiding my students to be the best they can be during the 10 months we spend together.
My entire teaching experience for the past 19 years involves teaching bilinguals. My first 4 years were spent working with Inuit children whose first language was Inukttitut, and for the past 15 years, I have been working in a francophone community in Quebec. 99% of my students are French first language speakers and come to my school in order to learn and be immersed in English. Tongue twisters aren’t just for English language learners. I love introducing and working on tongue twisters with ALL my students because they are highly engaging, they target specific speech patterns, they re-inforce alliteration and letter sounds, they improve diction, and best of all, students do not feel intimated to try them out – especially after seeing me attempt (and usually fail) at saying them! After all, tongue twisters are meant to be silly and fun – and that makes them the perfect combination for learning and reinforcing basic reading and communication skills.
My students and I use a fun, quick, low-prep pack of tongue twisters that encourage the practice of each letter sound. All you have to do is print them up, laminate, cut, and place them on 2 rings so that they become and easel. This package contains 4 tongue twisters for each letter of the alphabet (that makes 104 different tongue twisters) to practice with your students. These are a hit with my students – and I love hearing them try to master the phrases on the cards.
Some of the tongue twisters are nonsensical which challenges your students to really think about each word, decode each sound, and work on their reading rate. Others make sense but give a variety of sound/symbol practice to help reinforce the phonological rules of the English language.
ex. /f/ sound can be made with the letter f and ph
“Four furious friends fought for the phone.”
Some ideas for using this product:
* Centre activities
* Warm-Up activities for Language Arts
* Take it to you seat activities
* Early finishers
* Part of your Morning Meeting Routine
* Daily/ Weekly classroom passwords
* Brain breaks
* Pronunciation and fluency practice
* Make your own tongue twister colouring book – all BLACKLINE masters included
The use of this product does not need to take up a lot of your teaching time. By using one of the suggestions above, you will have your students practicing some very important language arts concepts without them even noticing!
For your own copy, just click on the picture below!
Have a great day!
Peace says
Really want to know more about how to teach fluency practice to children