About this activity
Twelve words across four vocalic contexts: car, star, barn and corn for ar; door, four, fork and horse for or; bear, chair and hair for air; deer for ear. Four contexts with three examples each, which is enough to tell whether a difficulty is general or specific to one vowel shape.
How to use it in a session
Work one context at a time. Ar and or are made with the tongue quite far back and the lips rounded for or; air and ear are made further forward, and a student can have one group and not the other. Do ar first, which is usually the most accessible. Six minutes covers the twelve, so this works well as a focused block inside a longer session.
What to listen for
Listen for the vowel quality rather than for a separate /r/. In car the vowel and the /r/ are one gesture, and a student producing cah-r has split them. Watch bear, chair and hair, where the air context often produces a plain vowel — a student who says beh for bear is missing the r-colouring entirely rather than distorting it.
Carrying it home
Car, door, chair and corn are ordinary words. Asking a family to listen for one gives them something concrete, and vocalic /r/ is frequent enough that it will come up within minutes.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Third through sixth, for students working vocalic /r/ beyond the er context.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all twelve cards play with no account.
- Why work the contexts separately?
- Because they behave differently. Ar and or are further back with different lip shapes than air and ear, so a student can be accurate on one group and not the other.