About this activity
Eight words covering six vocalic /r/ contexts: driver for er, starter job for ar, sophomore for or, entire for ire, repair shop for air, career for ear, quarterback for ar plus er, and employer for er. Vocalic /r/ is where a residual error lives longest, and each of these contexts behaves slightly differently — a student can have er and not ire.
How to use it in a session
Work one context at a time and find which are already accurate. Vocalic /r/ is not one target but six, and a student who has driver and not career has a specific gap rather than a general difficulty. Quarterback is the diagnostic word — two different vocalic contexts in one word — and is worth doing last. Twelve minutes covers a subset properly.
What to listen for
Listen for the /r/ colouring the vowel rather than being added after it. In driver the whole second syllable is r-coloured; a student who says drive-uh has produced a plain vowel, and one who says drive-er has added a separate sound. Both are different from the target. Watch entire and career, the two with the least frequent contexts.
Carrying it home
These are ordinary words a teenager says: driver, career, repair. Asking the student to notice one of them in their own speech once a day is the right level of home practice for a residual error.
Questions
- What is vocalic /r/?
- An /r/ that colours a vowel rather than acting as a separate consonant, as in driver, car and career. It is the context that most often persists into adolescence.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all eight words play free.
- Why work the contexts separately?
- Because they behave differently. A student can produce er accurately and not ire or air, so working all six as a single target spreads effort across contexts that are already correct.