Articulation and Phonology

20+ Helpful R Sound Speech Therapy Activities Kids Won’t Complain About Doing!

If you are a school-based SLP, there isn’t a year where you don’t need r sound speech therapy activities. I don’t think I have gone a year where I didn’t have at least one student on my caseload working on the R sound. Teaching this sound can be dreadful for both you and the student because it is hard! That’s why I am sharing R articulation resources and activities to help you work on R from isolation to conversation.

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R Sound Speech Therapy Resources for Elicitation

For my students who are starting at the first step, we’ll work on eliciting the R sound isolation. Here are some of my favorite tools to do this:

Watch this video with your students on how to say the bunched R sound from Peachie Speechie. She also has a video for the Retroflex R too! For SLPs working with middle school and high school, this video by Meredith is great for teaching the R sound to older students.
The Marshalla Guide has plenty of tips for producing various sounds, including the R sound.
Pam Marshalla also has the book Successful R Therapy: Fixing the Hardest Sound in the World, which will help you teach a solid R sound. Articulation carryover will go faster when you have a strong R in isolation.
If you need visuals, word lists, and tips for eliciting the R sound, check out this Speech Sound Handbook from Peachie Speechie
Rock the R has a nice list of R sound cues to help with elicitation.

R Sound Syllable and Word Speech Therapy Activities

When your students are doing articulation drill practice with the R sound in syllables and words, try some of these tips:

Use this FREE R sound syllable practice with dry-erase markers or post-it notes to practice R at the syllable level.
My R word activities speech therapy digital folders to customize quick drill activities for your in-person and teletherapy sessions. Keep everything in one place between links to websites, YouTube videos, Google Slides, progress monitoring tools, and PDFs.
Try my Prevocalic and Vocalic R Words activities flipbook or the NO print version.
Home Speech Home has great lists of R words for speech therapy.
Keep your students busy and engaged with this R articulation pipe cleaner activity.
Make an I Spy sensory bin with R mini trinkets and other sounds to pair with the free R sound articulation mat printables
Students can stamp out their R sound words using letter stampers, kinetic sand or playdough as an articulation station activity

Low-Prep R Articulation Words Activities for Speech Therapy

You can pair R articulation words with your favorite speech therapy games to get 100+ trials. The key to having R articulation activities is first having a good list of R words. I either use the word lists from my R articulation flipbooks or Home Speech Home.

Another activity is to make sound-loaded phrases with your students on paper that you can practice in the session and then take home for the weekly homework.

For example, you can use the phrases “I really like ______.” or “I just ran by a _____.” Then, students think of different words. They don’t have to have an R sound because the word your student will be working on is “really” or “run.” When using mixed groups, give them a category group to name items. Here are some more examples of R sound loaded phrases:

Rena wants ________ (insert the category group)
_____ is on the bridge.
Put the _____ in the car.
I found _____ in the garage.

Themed R Articulation Cards

If you do a theme-based approach, you can do this activity but use the theme’s vocabulary. See this IG for more details. We provide r articulation cards and speech sound words for every theme in the Themed Therapy SLP membership.

No Prep R Articulation Worksheets for Words & Short Sentences

It’s always good to have no prep r articulation worksheets in your speech therapy material stash to pull out for quick prep sessions, or for speech homework. Here are some of my favorite R articulation worksheets to get high trials at the word and sentence level:

R Articulation Activities With Sound Loaded Games

Kids love games and this is a great way to keep them motivated during R sound speech therapy practice. Whenever you are looking for a game for high drill practice, think of ways you can use the game pieces to get trials before playing the game. For example, with the game Sneaky Snacky Squirrel, you can have students earn acorns for every production. Then, while playing the game, they have to use a sound-loaded phrase like “I really want _____.” “My turn.” or “Ready to spin.” Once you complete the game, have the student practice their speech words while they put each acorn back in the box.

For R sound speech therapy games, here are some that have R words embedded in the game:

Articulation Describing Games for Language is great for getting in sound-loaded practice while working on describing items by attributes.
QUIA has Memory and Concentration games with R words
Toy Companion Cheat Sheets – have lists of R words related to your favorite games so you can work on those words while you play
Sound-Loaded Tic Tac Toe
Challenge points game for Final ER sound helps keep things motivating while also sneaking in practice.
Sound-loaded Tic Tac Toe are in the Digital R Articulation Folders

R Sound Speech Therapy Crafts

At any “stage” in R sound speech therapy, crafts can be a helpful way to keep students engaged. Most students are motivated to create something of their own. After, students can store the craft in their speech folder or bring it home for speech homework.

Have your students design rainbows with paper plates and draw or write their R words on the rainbow colored strips. You can use pictures from magazines or r words from my Any Craft Companion.
Do the paper plate challenge craft for a low prep R sound speech therapy craft.
Make an R sound rainbow craft. Have students practice their R sound every time they glue a colored paper. Then, practice again while they touch all the rainbow colors on their R. I also found a fun R letter craft for a road.
Create an R articulation words craft wallets to keep in their speech folders for warm-up drill practice or speech homework.

R Articulation Sentence Worksheets and Activities

Compare and contrast similar nouns that contain the R sound. For example, raccoons and squirrels, or raspberries and strawberries. Check out the R articulation carryover set if you need pre-selected compare-and-contrast flashcards.

Here are some more R articulation compare and contrast words:

Caterpillar and butterfly
Carrots and radishes
Horse and deer
Runner and swimmer
Doctor and nurse
Guitar and drum
Shirt and sweater

With your R sound words lists, have your students create tongue twisters that they can practice. You can even have them illustrate their tongue twister to make a fun speech soundbook. For example, you could use “Ruby rolled a red ribbon around a rock.” Or “Ricky rides a rooster on the ranch.”
You can make alliteration R poems and then students can draw their poem.
Play guessing games for secret words with only the R sound using my free Mystery Word Google Slide template. Add in carrier phrases for people to use, like “I really can’t say, but here is a clue: ______”
Make an I Spy sensory bin with R mini trinkets and other sounds to pair with the free R sound articulation mat printables

R Stories Speech Therapy & Conversation Activities

Last, but certainly not least, try these R sound conversation activities.

Here is a link to some low-prep R Sound conversation activities which includes fiction short stories, non-fiction passages, compare and contrast cards, conversation starter cards, picture-scene sequencing visuals and digital options.
Read non-fiction passages from the link above, or use wonderopolis or read works.org.
- Learn “What Is the World’s Favorite Food” or “What is a Zebra Giraffe?”
Make sound-loaded questions, or would you rather play games?
- For R sounds, I often will use “Which is your favorite?” or “Which would you take to a PARTY?”
Have students read a game’s directions or the cards while playing a game like Bubble Talk or Apples to Apples Junior.
Create a list of words that start with the R sound (rice, race, raccoon, doctor, pirate, fork, dinosaur, wrestle, erase, star, etc.), then have students make silly sentences or create a story trying to get the sound-loaded words in the story.

Free Articulation Activities for Carryover and Generalization

Make sure to download this free articulation carryover activity resource that you can use with your R sound speech therapy students to work on improving self-awareness and conversation skills. There are lots of visuals, speech homework sheet, and conversation script graphic organizer for practicing conversations your students will have in the community while practicing their R sound.

Would You Rather R Articulation Questions

Here are some Would Your Rather R articulation questions that you can use to get in some sentence and conversation practice in that will guarantee R sound practice:

Would you rather ride a rollercoaster or go rock climbing?
Would you rather race a rabbit or a raccoon?
Would you rather visit a rainforest or a ranch?
Would you rather eat raspberries or strawberries?
Would you rather have a robot as a friend or a rocket to explore space?
Would you rather read a book about rivers or watch a movie about rainbows?
Would you rather go on a road trip in a red car or a green truck?
Would you rather learn to play the guitar or the drums?
Would you rather live near a river or on a rural farm?
Would you rather visit a castle in Europe or explore the Grand Canyon?

R Sound-Loaded Questions

To get conversation going, here are some R sound-loaded questions to ask in your sessions:

What is your favorite kind of rainbow-colored candy?
Where would you like to travel on a road trip?
If you could have a pet rabbit, what would you name it?
What is your favorite red fruit: raspberries, strawberries, or cherries?
What is the coolest thing about a robot?
Have you ever ridden a rollercoaster? How did it feel?
What do you think makes a rocky road ice cream so tasty?
Which animal do you think runs the fastest: a raccoon or a roadrunner?
What kind of ring would you wear: gold, silver, or ruby?
If you lived on a ranch, what animal would you raise?

What R Articulation Activities Do You Plan With Your Students?

There are plenty of R articulation activities to use when working on the R sound in speech therapy! What activities do you like to use for R speech therapy? Please share with us on social media or in the comments.