Mr. Tongue Cleans His House

A mirror story in which the tongue is a little character tidying his house — the mouth — so the child practises moving the tongue up, down, and side to side on purpose, separately from the jaw.

  1. Sit side by side in front of a mirror, or face each other so the child can copy you. Introduce the hero — “This is Mr. Tongue, and his house is your mouth. Today is cleaning day.”
  2. Open the door — open the mouth wide and keep it open. Look out of the window — tongue straight out, then back in.
  3. Wash the walls — push the tongue into the left cheek, then the right cheek, so a bump shows on the outside. Then touch each corner of the lips — side, side, side, side — while the chin stays still.
  4. Paint the ceiling — with the mouth open, slide the tongue tip slowly backward along the roof of the mouth. Dust the shelf — tap the tongue tip on the bumpy ridge just behind the top front teeth, four times.
  5. Sweep the floor — tongue tip down behind the bottom teeth, sweeping side to side. Polish the windows — run the tongue slowly around the front of the teeth, top row then bottom row, lips closed.
  6. Ride the horse to the shop — click the tongue against the roof of the mouth, slow then fast. Then close the door — lips together, tongue resting up on the ceiling, and breathe through the nose for a slow count of five.

Variation: dab a little yogurt, jam, or honey on the upper lip, the lip corners, or the ridge behind the top teeth and let Mr. Tongue “clean it up”; or hand the story over — the child invents the next chore and you copy it.

Requirements

  • Space: Anywhere with a mirror — bathroom, hallway, or a hand mirror at the table
  • Surface: None needed; child sits or stands comfortably
  • Materials: A mirror; optional yogurt or jam and a clean spoon for the "sticky spot" variation
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; easily done with a small group
  • Supervision: Light — the adult tells the story and demonstrates each move

Rationale & Objective

Moving the tongue side to side and up to the roof of the mouth is one of this subdomain’s example skills, and both movements earn their keep every day: lateral tongue movement carries food onto the side teeth and clears it from the cheeks, and tongue-tip elevation to the ridge behind the top teeth is where sounds like t, d, n, and l are made (Morris & Klein). A key marker of maturity is dissociation — the tongue moving while the jaw holds still — and the mirror gives the visual feedback a 5-year-old needs to notice the difference. Tongue protrusion, tip elevation to the ridge, and a front-to-back sweep of the palate are among the movements sampled in clinical oral-mechanism screens for young children (Robbins & Klee, 1987), so the game also lets a parent notice if a movement is consistently hard. Tongue stories of this kind are a long-standing tradition in Polish kindergartens (gimnastyka buzi i języka). In fairness to the evidence, non-speech tongue exercises have not been shown to correct speech-sound errors (Lee & Gibbon, 2015; Lof & Watson, 2008) — the realistic gains are oral awareness, voluntary control, tidier eating, and a playful habit of closed-lip, tongue-up rest at the end.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: the jaw or whole head moves along with the tongue; cannot find the lip corners or the roof of the mouth without a finger or a dab of food to guide; needs the mirror for every move
  • Developing: reaches both lip corners and both cheeks with small jaw movements; lifts the tongue tip to the ridge with the mouth only slightly open; clicks unevenly
  • Proficient: moves the tongue side to side and up to the ridge with the mouth open and the jaw still; traces the teeth smoothly; produces clear, rhythmic clicks; follows the story without the mirror
  • Advanced: performs the sequence quickly and smoothly in any order, can curl the tip up and hold it, invents and names new tongue moves, and leads the story for someone else

Safety Notes

  • Clean hands and a clean spoon if using food dabs; never put fingers or objects deep into the child’s mouth
  • Honey is fine for a 5-year-old but must not be shared with babies under 12 months who may be playing alongside
  • Keep it short — 3–5 minutes; tongue and jaw muscles tire, and aching is a signal to stop
  • Do not turn it into drill or use it to correct the way the child talks; a child who is self-conscious about speech needs the game to stay purely silly
  • If the tongue cannot lift to the roof of the mouth or reach the lip corners, pulls strongly to one side, or the tip looks heart-shaped when pushed out, ask a pediatrician, dentist, or speech-language pathologist to take a look
  • Speech that strangers find hard to understand at 5 deserves a speech-language assessment in its own right — these exercises are not a treatment for it

Hints

  • Playfulness: give Mr. Tongue a voice and a mood — today he is grumpy, sleepy, or in a huge hurry. Pull the faces yourself; children commit fully when the adult looks ridiculous too
  • Sustain interest: change the plot — the tongue as a snake exploring a cave, a painter, a cat washing its whiskers, an astronaut checking the spaceship. Let the child choose tomorrow’s character
  • Common mistake: rushing through ten moves. Fewer moves done slowly with the jaw still are worth more — rest a finger on the child’s chin as a “doorstop” if the jaw keeps joining in
  • No-equipment adaptation: skip the mirror and face each other as “copycats” in the car queue or the bath; the child watches your mouth instead
  • Cross-domain: position words — up, down, behind, around, left, right (spatial language); retelling the chores in order (narrative and sequencing); copying a model (imitation and attention)
  • Progression: moves guided by a food dab → moves copied in the mirror → jaw kept still → no mirror → faster sequences in mixed order → child narrates and leads

Sources

  • Robbins, J. & Klee, T. (1987), “Clinical assessment of oropharyngeal motor development in young children,” Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 52(3), 271–277
  • Morris, S.E. & Klein, M.D. — Pre-Feeding Skills (2nd ed.) — tongue lateralisation, tongue-tip elevation, and jaw–tongue dissociation
  • Lee, A.S.-Y. & Gibbon, F.E. (2015), “Non-speech oral motor treatment for children with developmental speech sound disorders,” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
  • Lof, G.L. & Watson, M.M. (2008), “A nationwide survey of nonspeech oral motor exercise use: implications for evidence-based practice,” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 39(3)
  • Polish preschool speech-therapy practice (gimnastyka buzi i języka — traditional tongue-story exercises used alongside the Podstawa Programowa)
  • AOTA Occupational Therapy Practice Framework (OTPF-4) — oral motor functions supporting eating and communication