R Blends: List of Words, Phrases & More for Home Speech Therapy

Charlotte Witts
ESL Teacher
July 26, 2023

In spoken language, the /r/ sound and /r/ blends can be notoriously tricky for children to articulate.

Due to its complexity, many children won’t master it until they are between eight and nine years old, often mispronouncing words like ‘road’ as ‘woad’, or ‘tree’ as ‘twee’ throughout their preschool and early school years. In fact, an inability to pronounce the sound correctly is so common that it even has a name: rhotacism. 

If your child is struggling to correctly articulate this sound, try not to be too worried. With practice and patience, your child can soon master these tricky /r/ sounds and /r/ blend sounds and build their overall communication skills.  

To give you the helping hand you need, we’ve gathered a comprehensive list of the /r/ blend words, phrases, and sentences you can use for home speech therapy alongside our trusted Forbrain headset. 

We’ve also included a comprehensive /r/ sound pronunciation guide, games, activities, and books you can share with your child, and tips on how to help your child pronounce this challenging sound with ease.

What are /R/ Blend Words?

When we talk about /r/ blend words, we’re referring to what speech therapists call ‘consonant blends. As the word suggests, this is when two or more consonants are blended but you can still hear each sound. With /r/ blends, the /r/ sound is always the strongest. 

Examples of simple /r/ blend words include: 

• /fr/ is in FRog 

• /dr/ as in DRop

• /cr/ as in CRy

• /br/ as in BRown

• /gr/ as in GRow

• /pr/ as in PRint

• /tr/ as in TRap

Other /r/ blends include those more complex consonant combinations such as:

• /str/ as in STRong

• /thr/ as in THRow

• /shr/ as in SHRek

• /scr/ as in SCReam

• /spr/ as in SPRing

In this article, we’ll be focussing on the first seven /r/ blends. 

Word Lists: /R/ Blend Words

The best way to help your child improve their articulation of the /r/ blend sounds, grow in confidence, and improve communication skills is to work through a comprehensive word list. 

We’ve created exactly that for you, pulling together lists of the most child-friendly /r/ blend words, organizing them according to the specific consonant blend and whether they appear at the beginning or middle of the word. 

Whether you need an easy go-to resource for professional or home speech therapy or simply need extra practice, these words will make a huge difference. 

We’ve made word lists for the /r/ blend sounds, divided into /fr/, /dr/, /cr/, /br/, /gr/, /pr/ and /tr/ sound blends. 

Let’s start with the /fr/ sound. 

Next, let’s move onto the /dr/ sound word list for use with your home speech therapy sessions.

The /cr/ sound is very common in the English language. Here is a wordlist for this sound blend:

Our next focus will be the /br/ sound, found in words like ‘bread’ and ‘breakfast, Here’s a /br/ sound word list to help:

Here is a list of the most common /gr/ blend sounds:

The /pr/ blend sound is also a common one, found in words like ‘princess’ and ‘pretzel’. Here’s a word list for this consonant blend:

Finally, here is a list of the most common, child-friendly /tr/ sounds for use with your professional or home speech therapy sessions:

Further /R/ Blend Word Practice Using Short Phrases and Sentences

Well done! We understand that these lists of /r/ blend words can feel overwhelming when you’re helping your child with their sound pronunciation at home. If you’ve read through the lists together, you’ve already made huge progress. 

At this point, you can move forward and help your child boost their fluency and further improve their articulation skills by using these /r/ blend words in short phrases and sentences. 

This gives them the tools they need to use these new language articulation skills, communicate more effectively and start to overcome other speech development issues. 

Here’s our recommended /r/ blend home speech therapy program, created by our experts at Forbrain:

• Read through the /r/ blend word lists, one at a time. Assess your child’s level at this point- if they are struggling, focus first on one /r/ blend sound before moving onto the next. 

• Work through our /r/ blend sound pronunciation guide to ensure that your child can say the words correctly.

• Use carrier phrases to help them use these words in real-life contexts.

• Move on to using short phrases and sentences for each of the /r/ blend sounds.

• Practice with child-friendly games, activities and books.

• Repeat for the other /r/ blend sounds. 

Carrier phrases

Carrier phrases are widely used in speech therapy because they are so effective and can instantly help your child use these new articulation skills they’ve been using. 

Simply choose a carrier phrase from the list below, insert your choice of /r/ blend word then practice using the sentence often. If you can, select words from the initial /r/ blend and medial /r/ blend word lists. 

Here are some of our favorite carrier phrases: 

• “I see a…”

• “I found a…”

• “I want a…”

• “He found a…”

• “She found a…”

• “I have a…”

• “He has a…”

• “She has a…”

• “I like to…”

• “He likes to…”

Put into practice, it looks like this:

• I see a FROG”

• “I found a DRAGONFLY”

• “I want a CRACKER”

• “He found a BRACELET”

• “She found a GRASSHOPPER”

• “I have a PROBLEM”

• “He has a TREASURE”

Short phrases for /R/ blend words sound

Once you’ve worked through the carrier phrases for the /r/ blend words and your child is reasonably comfortable and confident, move onto practicing using short phrases. 

Read through these with your child and you’ll further improve their pronunciation of the /r/ blend sounds. 

Short Phrases /Fr/ sound 

Short Phrases /Dr/ sound

Short Phrases /Cr/ sound

Short Phrases /Br/ Sound 

Short Phrases /Gr/ sound

Short Phrases /Pr/ Sound

Short Phrases /Tr/ Sound

Short sentences for /R/ blend words 

Now that you’ve worked through those short phrases for the /r/ blend words with your child, stretch their articulation skills even further by using the following short sentences. 

As before, they’re organized according to where the /r/ blend sound appears in the word: at the beginning (initial) or middle (medial) of the word. 

Short Sentences /Fr/ sound 

Short Sentences /Dr/ sound

Short Sentences /Cr/ sound

Short Sentences /Br/ Sound

Short Sentences /Gr/ sound

Short Sentences /Pr/ Sound

Short Sentences /Tr/ Sound

Games & activities with /R/ blend words 

Provide your child with the /r/ blend sound practice they need and have fun at the same time by playing the following age-appropriate games and activities with your child. 

By doing so, you’ll help them further develop the articulation skills they need, boost their overall language skills and give them the confidence boost they deserve. 

We’ve gathered together a list of the most effective games, activities and books you can use with your child to learn while having fun. 

Use them alongside the /r/ blend word lists shared above and the patented Forbrain headset to see a significant improvement. 

Play The Rhyming Game

• Print the lists of /r/ blend words we shared above, cut them out to make flash cards and then shuffle them well. 

• Place the pile of cards face down on a table and tell your child to take one. 

• Ask them to say the word aloud then think of a rhyming word. For example, they might pull the ‘crash’ word and might think of the word ‘dash’. Bear in mind that this new word doesn’t need to be a /r/ blend. 

• Congratulate them for their efforts and repeat several times. 

Play ‘Beach Ball Toss’

• Find a beach ball, blow it up and write /r/ words on each section with a permanent marker pen. 

• Ask your child or children to stand opposite you and catch the ball when you throw it. 

• Whenever they catch the ball, they should pronounce the word that they see in front of them. 

• Repeat this several times. 

Play ‘Articulation Chain’

• Tell your child that you’re going on an imaginary trip and need to pack. The only problem is that you can only pack things with an /r/ or /r/ blend sound in the word. 

• Depending on their age, either give them a pile of flashcards to review or allow them to brainstorm words they could use. 

• Next, start the game by saying “I am going on a trip and I will pack [insert word]” for example, “I am going on a trip and I will pack A BRACELET”

• Then encourage your child to repeat this sentence then add their own /r/ blend word, for example, “I am going on a trip and I will pack a bracelet and A PRESENT”. 

• Repeat as many times as you like. 

Read books together

Reading books that include the /r/ sound and /r/ blend sound is a great way to help your child become more familiar with these sounds, ignite their imagination and improve their overall cognitive skills. 

If you can ask them to repeat the /r/ words after you as you read, you’ll also give them the fun, relaxed practice they need to improve. 

Here’s our selection of our favorite /r/ blend sound books. 

• Br- blends: Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

• Cr-blends: The Very Cranky Bear by Nick Bland

• Dr-blends: Do Not Bring Your Dragon to the Library by Julie Gassman

• Fr-blends: Freddy the Frogcaster by Janice Dean

• Gr-blends: The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson

• Pr-blends: Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio

• Tr-blends: The Wish Tree by Kyo Maclear

How to pronounce the /R/ blend sounds

Before you help your child improve their pronunciation of the /r/ blend sounds, it’s a good idea to understand exactly how you pronounce this sound. By doing so, you can get a feel for how you use your speech organs and can better troubleshoot any difficulties that your child may have. 

Let’s start by quickly looking at how we produce speech sounds in general. We start by sending air from our lungs, passing it over our vocal cords then shaping them using a selection of our tongue, lips, nose and mouth. 

When it comes to those /r/ blend sounds, we are dealing with a slightly more complex scenario. Not only are we producing the tricky /r/ sound, we must also ‘blend’ it with other sounds to create the /r/ blends we’re working on here: /fr/, /dr/, /cr/, /br/, /gr/, /pr/ and /tr/. 

This means it’s a good idea to first focus on producing the /r/ sound correctly, before moving onto the /r/ blends. 

The /r/ sound is what linguists call a voiced alveolar glide consonant. This means that you use your vocal cords (voiced), your tongue is positioned towards the roof of your mouth (alveolar) and it sounds similar to a vowel (glide consonant). 

Pronouncing the /R/ sound & /R/ blends sounds

Start by pronouncing the /r/ sound, paying attention to the shape of your mouth including whether you use your vocal cords and how your tongue and lips are positioned. 

We recommend you choose a simple word such as ‘rat’ or ‘red’, then repeat it a few times until you feel you understand how you’re pronouncing this tricky sound. 

If you’re doing it correctly, you’ll notice that your vocal cords are indeed vibrating and that your tongue is curled toward the roof of your mouth and the air flows through the narrow space you’ve created.

You can also repeat this using /r/ blend words such as ‘frog’, ‘dragonfly’, ‘cracker’, ‘bracelet’, ‘grasshopper’, ‘problem’ and ‘treasure’, paying attention to what happens in your mouth. 

How to produce the /R/ sound and /R/ blend sounds correctly

Here’s how to help your child produce the /r/ and /r/ blend sounds effectively: 

1) Tell your child that you’re going to play a fun game where you need to roar like a lion. Encourage them to be loud and really feel they’ve become a scary beast! 

2) If they are finding it tricky, try pairing the /r/ sound with a vowel like the long /a/ sound. For example, ask them to say ‘raaaaaaaaa’ and see how they get on. 

3) Often, figuring out the right tongue position can be difficult for your child. If this is the case, use your arm to demonstrate what should be happening. Put your arm out in front of you then up and in towards your body. Encourage them to practice again. 

4) Finally, work through the /r/ blend word lists above according to the needs of your child and encourage them to practice. 

We understand that this can be tricky to understand in written form which is why we recommend you watch this video on correct articulation of the /r/ sound and this video on /r/ blends for more help. 

Using Forbrain to Upgrade Sound Practice

You can help your child master the tricky /r/ sound and /r/ sound blends by using our scientifically proven Forbrain headset alongside the word lists, phrases and sentences we’ve shared here. 

It harnesses the power of technology, using an enhanced auditory feedback loop via bone conduction to provide targeted, pressure-free practice and overcome their speech and language difficulties. 

Used for just 10 minutes per day, your child can hear the /r/ sound more clearly, improve their articulation skills and get instant feedback that helps them further tweak their pronunciation of this sound. 

Find out more about Forbrain here. 

Final Words

The /r/ sound and /r/ blend are among the most difficult sounds for your child to articulate and often aren’t mastered until the age of eight or nine. 

Therefore, if your child is struggling, work through the lists of /r/ words and /r/ blend words we’ve shared here, use your Forbrain headset and enjoy those games and activities and books with your child. 

With this home speech therapy, you’ll soon see an improvement and help your child grow in confidence, improve their sound perception and articulation skills and fulfill their potential. 

Charlotte Witts

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Charlotte is a linguistics graduate, ESL teacher and parent who is passionate about sharing her expertise in speech therapy, language acquisition and second-language learning so everyone can reach their full potential.

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