Initial R in Isolation & Syllables

LEARN 3 WAYS:  The lesson is provided in Video, Audio or Text format below.

In this lesson, you will be learning how to teach your child Initial ‘R’, which is ‘R’ at the beginning of words.  (rain, ring, rabbit, really)

Most kids who are mispronouncing Initial ‘R’, are saying a ‘W’ sound instead.  (wain, wing, wabbit, weally).  You’ll need to teach them not to put their lips together, which makes the ‘W’, and instead keep them apart for the ‘R’.  They will also need to move their tongue back and up in their mouth as they make the sound.

The Initial ‘R’ is easier to teach than the Vocalic ‘R’ because your child can look in a mirror to see if he is rounding his lips too much. Also, since the initial ‘R’ is followed immediately by a vowel, the sound doesn’t last very long and tongue placement errors are not as noticeable.  The biggest factor is to prevent the ‘W’ sound.  Along with focusing on the lips, tell your child to keep his tongue in the back of his mouth, not near the front.

With Initial R, we can skip the isolation level and start with syllables.  You can start teaching your child using the syllables Rah, Ray, Ree, Rye, Ro, and Roo.

Have your child try saying ‘Rah’ without letting his lips touch together.  It might help o use a mirror in front of both of you if you can.  At least give your child a mirror so that he can see himself.

Try to make it fun!  Reward your child for any effort to produce the sound without touching his lips together.  Also, tell your child to keep his tongue in the back of his mouth, not near the front.

Practice the ‘Rah’ syllable at least 3 times.  Then you can move on to the next syllable, ‘Ray’ and do the same thing.  You may find that some syllables will be easier for your child to produce, and that’s ok.  You can come back to the harder ones later.

Move on to the next syllables, trying to get as many correct productions as possible.  If your child gets discouraged, switch to a different activity, like trying to name as many items in the room that begin with ‘R’ as possible.  You could also read a storybook that has a lot of ‘R’ words in it.

When your child can produce ‘R’ syllables correctly 80% of the time, you can move on to Initial ‘R’ in words in the next module!