Vibrante simple /r/ entre vocales
Tarjetas para la vibrante simple en posición intervocálica: pera, aro, toro, cara.
Session summary (SOAP)
Stays on this screen. Nothing is saved or sent.
Mark a card Correct, Correct with cue or Incorrect and the summary writes itself here.
How to run it
Contrast it with the English /d/ if the student is bilingual, since the Spanish tap and the American English flap in butter are nearly the same sound — a student who says butter has already made this sound in another language. Do the short words first: pera, aro, toro, cara. Mariposa and camarón are four syllables and put the target in the middle, which is the hardest configuration here. Eight minutes covers a subset.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentShow the card and wait 3 seconds for the student to say it.Log as correct
- Visual cuePoint to your mouth, or show the mouth picture for the tapped /r/, before the student tries again.Log as cued
- Verbal modelSay the word; the student says it right after you.Log as cued
- Placement cueOne quick tap of the tongue tip on the ridge behind your top teeth, as in 'pero'. Just one tap, not a trill.Log as cued
Adjust it
Drop to syllables ('ara' and 'oro'), or use fewer cards.
Put each word in a short carrier phrase with no /r/ or /rr/ in it.
Matching IEP goal
Given picture cards, Student will produce the tapped /r/ in Spanish 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
Fourteen Spanish words with the single tap r between vowels: pera, aro, toro, cara, oreja, arena, dinero, cereza, mariposa, tijeras, sombrero, enero, camarón, naranja. The tap is a brief single contact rather than a trill, and it is the more frequent of the two Spanish r sounds by a wide margin.
What to listen for
Listen for a trill where a tap belongs, which is over-application and produces carro for caro — a different word. Watch the four-syllable words, where the tap is in an unstressed syllable and often disappears entirely rather than being substituted.
Carrying it home
Pera, cara, dinero and naranja are everyday words. Asking a family to notice one word rather than the sound in general is a task they can actually keep up with.
What's in this activity
- pera
- aro
- toro
- cara
- oreja
- arena
- dinero
- cereza
- mariposa
- tijeras
- sombrero
- enero
- camarón
- naranja
Questions
- Is this activity in Spanish?
- Yes, all fourteen words are Spanish. The page is in English so an English-speaking clinician can find and evaluate it.
- Is it free?
- Yes, no account needed.
- How is this different from the trill?
- The tap is a single brief contact and the trill is several. They distinguish words in Spanish — caro and carro are different — so they are separate targets rather than variations.
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.