About this activity
Ten words starting with /r/: red, run, rain, rock, ring, rope, rice, road, rose, rabbit. Nine are single syllables and one is two, which keeps the load on the sound rather than the word. /r/ is a late-developing sound and among the hardest to cue, because nothing about it is visible.
How to use it in a session
Find the position the student can already reach. /r/ can be made with the tongue tip curled back or with the whole body bunched, and different students succeed with different shapes — trying both is more productive than insisting on one. Words with a following back vowel — rock, rope, road — are often easier than red or ring. Eight minutes covers the ten.
What to listen for
Listen for /w/ replacing it, which is the standard substitution — wed for red. Watch whether the following vowel makes a difference, since accuracy on rope and not on ring is a coarticulation effect and tells you which words to build from. Notice whether the student can produce any /r/ at all, in any context, since finding one accurate production is the whole first phase of /r/ work.
Carrying it home
Red, rain, road and rabbit are frequent words. Modelling them clearly rather than requesting a correction is the right approach for a young child, since /r/ takes a long time and correction can make a child talk less.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- First through fourth, and /r/ often remains a target well beyond that.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all ten cards play with no login.
- Why is /r/ so hard to teach?
- Because nothing about it is visible and there are several correct tongue shapes. Finding the one this particular student can produce is most of the work, and it takes longer than for almost any other sound.