Classroom Kitty

Many of us do. You're probably asking yourself, where do tongue twisters fit into early childhood education? Good question and here's the answer.

Tongue twisters are great for young children. A short and simple sentence (or just 2-3 words) using the same letter or phonetic sound that gets distorted the more and the faster you say it. It's funny! It's fun! It's free!

Children love to repeat what we tell them. Here's a chance for them to repeat and re-repeat. Start them with a short tongue twister for example: TOY BOAT.

Pretty easy to say 'toy boat'. Say it once and have the children repeat it. Now say it twice and let them repeat. Now say it three times without speeding up the words. Just saying 'toy boat, toy boat, toy boat' at a normal pace is a challenge in itself. Once they get it, ask them to speed it up. They'll love it. They're practicing their words and pronunciation. They'll want to do it over and over again.

For short tongue twisters you can have pictures available to help children connect with the object and labeling. Use tongue twisters according to your theme or subject of the week/month.

After introducing a few tongue twisters ask children try to come up with their own. Even if they can't read and don't know their letters, they're discovering sounds and isn't that what language is all about?

Around four or five years old children love to recite. You can then start giving them short 2-3 lines like "If you want to buy…" Then they are not only practicing their words and pronunciation but their developing memory skills as well.

Here you'll find some of my favorite tongue twisters. I wish I could give credit where credit is due but I have no know source of who wrote these tongue twisters.

Greek grapes.(3x)

Toy phone.(3x)

Quick kiss.(3x)

Aluminum linoleum.(3x)

Three free throws.(3x)

Kitty caught the kitten in the kitchen.

Give papa a cup of proper coffee in a copper coffee cup.

A tricky frisky snake with sixty super scaly stripes.

Zero zebras zigzagged into the zoo.

A big black bug
Bit a big black bear
Made the big black bear
bleed blood.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy
Was he?

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A woodchuck could chuck as much wood
as a woodchuck could chuck wood.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.