diff --git a/r/NAMESPACE b/r/NAMESPACE
index 0b18ace9ad3..cde81d977b7 100644
--- a/r/NAMESPACE
+++ b/r/NAMESPACE
@@ -101,6 +101,7 @@ S3method(dimnames,ArrowTabular)
 S3method(head,ArrowDatum)
 S3method(head,ArrowTabular)
 S3method(head,Dataset)
+S3method(head,ExecPlanReader)
 S3method(head,RecordBatchReader)
 S3method(head,Scanner)
 S3method(head,arrow_dplyr_query)
diff --git a/r/R/query-engine.R b/r/R/query-engine.R
index b90ef382146..7e737af3ffa 100644
--- a/r/R/query-engine.R
+++ b/r/R/query-engine.R
@@ -361,6 +361,14 @@ ExecPlanReader <- R6Class("ExecPlanReader",
   )
 )
 
+#' @export
+head.ExecPlanReader <- function(x, n = 6L, ...) {
+  # We need to make sure that the head() of an ExecPlanReader
+  # is also an ExecPlanReader so that the evaluation takes place
+  # in a way that supports calls into R.
+  as_record_batch_reader(as_adq(RecordBatchReader__Head(x, n)))
+}
+
 do_exec_plan_substrait <- function(substrait_plan) {
   if (is.string(substrait_plan)) {
     substrait_plan <- substrait__internal__SubstraitFromJSON(substrait_plan)
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/test-query-engine.R b/r/tests/testthat/test-query-engine.R
index 86d89898083..1d8d876bf53 100644
--- a/r/tests/testthat/test-query-engine.R
+++ b/r/tests/testthat/test-query-engine.R
@@ -79,6 +79,17 @@ test_that("ExecPlanReader evaluates head() lazily", {
   # evaluate to TRUE (i.e., the reader may or may not be completely drained).
 })
 
+test_that("head() of an ExecPlanReader is an ExecPlanReader", {
+  reader <- as_record_batch_reader(as_adq(arrow_table(x = 1:10)))
+  expect_r6_class(reader, "ExecPlanReader")
+  reader_head <- head(reader, 6)
+  expect_r6_class(reader_head, "ExecPlanReader")
+  expect_equal(
+    as_arrow_table(reader_head),
+    arrow_table(x = 1:6)
+  )
+})
+
 test_that("do_exec_plan_substrait can evaluate a simple plan", {
   skip_if_not_available("substrait")