/r/ Matching Game
Match /r/ words to their pictures.
Words
Match
How to run it
Require the word on every selection, including the wrong ones. The matching is the game and the naming is the practice, and without that rule a child can finish the board silently. Ask for a phrase on the pairs that come easily — a red rose, the long road — so the harder productions land where the child is already succeeding. Ten minutes covers six words with phrases.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentThe student says each word aloud as they match it. Wait 3 seconds.Log as correct
- Visual cuePoint to your mouth, or show the mouth picture for /r/, before the student tries again.Log as cued
- Verbal modelSay the word; the student says it right after you.Log as cued
- Placement cueSides of your tongue up against your top back teeth, tip either lifted and pulled back or pointed down with the tongue bunched up. Lips slightly rounded, and the tip never touches the roof.Log as cued
Adjust it
Drop to syllables ('ra' and 'ree'), or use fewer cards.
Put each word in a short carrier phrase with no /r/ in it.
Matching IEP goal
Given word cards, Student will produce /r/ in single words in 8 of 10 opportunities across 3 consecutive sessions, given no more than a visual cue.
Send it home through the parent portal →About this activity
Six /r/ words matched to pictures: red, ring, rain, road, rose, rainbow. A short board, which suits the reality of early /r/ work — the sound is hard and a young child gets more from six words done carefully than from twenty rushed.
What to listen for
Listen for consistency across repetitions. A six-item board gets revisited, and hearing red three times tells you whether an accurate production was reliable or lucky. Watch rainbow, the only two-syllable word here, where the /r/ has to survive a longer word.
Carrying it home
Red, rain, road and rose are ordinary words. Asking a child to name one of them when it comes up is more practice than it sounds, because /r/ needs many repetitions over a long time.
What's in this activity
- red 🔴
- ring 💍
- rain 🌧️
- road 🛣️
- rose 🌹
- rainbow 🌈
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- First through fourth grade.
- Do I need an account?
- No, it plays free in the browser with no login.
- Why only six words?
- Because /r/ is hard and repetitions matter more than variety. A short board gets revisited, which gives you several productions of the same word to compare.
Use this board with your caseload
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal, with the data written up for you. Assign it as home practice through the parent portal.
Track progress freeFree for SLPs. No card, no trial clock.