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The R sound… you either love it or loathe it. It can be a challenging sound to elicit and may leave you and your student feeling discouraged. Exciting games and activities can really help keep your students motivated while working on such a difficult sound. The more engaged, the more they practice (hopefully). Today, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite articulation games for R that are guaranteed to keep kids motivated while doing drill practice.
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There are SO many games with the R sound right in the name of the game! Before playing any of the articulation games for R, ask students what the game’s name is. Do they know how to play? What are the rules? As you talk about the articulation game, write down a list of R words. Your students can then practice those words before playing or give them challenge words to focus on when playing. Here are some of my favorite articulation games for R:
I share more ideas for Pop-Up Pirate, Chutes and Ladders, and more games in my Toy companion cheat sheet. In addition to the naturally embedded targets, have students practice a target word or phrase before each turn. Use the R sound flipbook and R blend flipbook for word lists and sound-loaded phrases. Remember other game classics like Connect 4, Beware the Bear, and Crocodile Dentist for more articulation games for R!
For a low-prep R articulation activity game, play Race to 100 with your students! Students will roll a die to determine how many times they’ll practice their word. As they practice, they can cross out or color in the boxes. Whoever reaches 100 first wins! Download your free Race to 100 game cards. If you are looking for articulation games for R that work with many different speech sound goals, this is the one to use with your students. It’s super easy to drill at the word and sentence level with R speech sound word lists.
Another low prep option are these Digital R and R blend Folders. Use these R articulation activities during your sessions, and send home carryover activities for home! These folders include auditory discrimination tasks, phonological awareness activities, race to 100 R articulation games, carrier phrase activities, worksheets, warm-ups, homework ideas, tic-tac-toe R articulation games, and progress monitoring tools.
Play my Describing Articulation Game with your students! Not only does this come with R, R-blends, and other sounds, but you can also address expressive and receptive vocabulary goals with it! Students have to describe their words with their best speech, while the other students have to guess what word is being described. They can make their guess by saying “I think the word is…” Are their guesses right or wrong? Do they need more clues?
Similar to the describing game, play Hedbanz with pictures and words that are loaded with R sounds. Students can ask questions with words lile “Are you…” and “Where…” Again, prompt for words like right, wrong, more clues, and word. Use the themed R articulation flashcards from the Themed Therapy SLP membership for your target words!
Get moving in your R articulation speech therapy sessions! Here are two articulation games for R that incorporate movement:
For some fun articulation games for R to use with upper elementary and middle school, playing question games where they get to share their opinions are usually a hit. You can use the “Would You Rather?” game to take turns asking the questions and prompt students to answer the question with a complete sentence, “I would rather…” Use sound-loaded options like “Would you rather only run backwards or only run in slow motion?” Here are some other R sound-loaded questions you can ask during this articulation game for R:
Because the R sound is in a lot of words, you can pull up most “Would You Rather? games and get in lots of R word and sentence practice. Here are some resources I have found helpful to use as an articulation game for R:
When students can practice their R sound while playing a game, it helps increase self awareness and makes it a little more fun. Here are some articulation games for R that you can naturally get in trials while playing the game:
The R sound can be challenging so I hope these activities make it a little easier for you in your sessions! Need some ideas for other sounds? Take a look at, CH articulation games, SH articulation games, S blend activities and S articulation activities. I can’t wait to hear some of your go to R articulation games and activities, too! Share with me on social media.
