Every now and then we get faced by a little one, or even an older child who either struggles to form words properly or whom you can't hear a word they say. Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, there mouth muscles and tongue isn't developed or strong enough.

Here is a fun story we began doing with my special education learners, but later included all the grade 1's to 3's. This is mainly to develop all the mouth muscles and the tongue:
Resource for the story: http://www.write-out-loud.com/tongue-exercises-for-articulation.html

Mrs Tongue

Mrs Tongue Does Her Housework
Mrs Tongue lives in her house, the mouth.
Every morning she mops it from ceiling to floor.
First she sweeps her mop from right to left.

Instruction: Run your tongue in a full circle around your cheek walls and across the front of your top and bottom teeth. Repeat 3 times.

Next she sweeps her mop from left to right.
Instruction: Reverse the direction of the circle. Repeat 3 times.

Now she dusts the furniture.
Instruction: Sweep your tongue as rapidly as you can from side to side across the upper teeth. Repeat at least 10 times.

Then she shakes out the rug out the window.
Instruction: Stick the tongue out, extended as far as you can, and move it rapidly up and down. Repeat at least 10 times.

Lastly she sweeps away the cobwebs from around the front door.
Instruction: Stick the tongue out as far as you can and sweep it from right to left around the outside of your lips. Repeat 3 times, then reverse the direction and repeat 3 times.

Do it with your learners. Apart from giving your mouth exercise, they will not feel that self-conscious, because of the "My teacher is being funny with us." feeling.

The Mrs Tongue Story

Apart from the Mrs Tongue story there are other ways of helping learning develop there speech as well as there mouth muscles.

1. At http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/ you can find speech mats you can use at home. Here is an example of these mats.
   
2. THIS IS AN AMAZING LINK YOU CAN FOLLOW: http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Parent-Stim-Activities.htm

Resources
http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/
http://www.write-out-loud.com/tongue-exercises-for-articulation.html

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