Growling R

Students will often incorrectly reverse the "r" and the vowel. In many words reversing the two letters will still produce a real word (barn/bran, arm/ram) but the meaning is completely different.

Growling ‘r’ Story:

After we visit the bank, we run into the very lonely Growling "r" tiger. He realizes that because he always growls he has no friends. We feel so bad for the tiger that we decide to help him learn to make friends.
We set out to the jungle to meet some friends. First we meet a tiger named "e" and the Growling "r" tiger tries to introduce himself to "e", he tries not to growl, but he cantt help himself and growls /er/. "r" does not let "e" say her name or sound.
He moves on and tries to introduce himself to "u" the turtle, but he growls again: /ur/. He does the same thing with "i" the bird. He doesn't let them say their name or sound.
Then he says, “I am going to try really, really hard not to growl when I meet "a" the armadillo.” He growls a little less and just says his name "r".
Then he meets "o" the stork and does even better. He let "o" start to say his name, but then falls back into his old habit of growling: /or/.
“I guess I'm just a growling tiger, and you can't get a tiger to change its stripes!”
Hand Motions Make both of your hands look like claws. As you tell the story, say /er/ like a tiger and hold your claws in the air.

Point out that ‘er’ is the most common spelling (40%), ‘ur’ is the second most common (26%) and ‘ir’ is the least common (13%). When all else fails, it will help the student make an educated spelling guess.