R-Controlled Vowels: Word Lists for ar, or, er, ir, and ur

An r-controlled vowel is a vowel followed by r. Reading Universe uses the ar in card as the example, and lists the same pattern under the names bossy r and vowel-r. The r changes the vowel. It is not the short sound from a short vowel word, and it is not the long sound either.

Literacy Learn says that when r follows the vowel, the vowel no longer makes its long or short sound, and a new sound is created. That is what bossy r means. The nickname is optional. The skill is to read the vowel and the r as one chunk.

Three sounds, five spellings

Literacy Learn teaches three new phonemes in this unit:

• /ar/ as in car
• /or/ as in corn
• /er/ as in her, bird, and nurse

Reading Universe counts five r-controlled spellings and gives the same three pronunciations: /ar/ as in arm, /or/ as in fork, and /er/ as in fern, bird, and surf. Er, ir, and ur are three ways to spell one sound. That is why they sound the same. The ear hears /er/. The spelling is the part that has to be learned.

Air, ear, and the or in work come later. Care, hair, hear, and work are real words. They are a poor first lesson, because they add more sounds to a pattern students are still hearing as a chunk.

Word lists

Use these for sorting and dictation. Each word matches the sound in its heading.

ar says /ar/

car, star, farm, park, card, jar, barn, arm, art, shark, hard, yard, dark, start

War and warm use a different vowel. Leave them out of the /ar/ sort.

or says /or/

for, corn, fork, storm, horn, sport, short, porch, north, sort, horse

Word, work, worm, and world spell /er/ with or. Hold them until /or/ is steady, then teach them as a small set of their own.

er, ir, and ur say /er/

er: her, fern, germ, herd, clerk, serve, perch, verb

ir: bird, girl, dirt, first, shirt, stir, skirt, firm

ur: turn, burn, curl, hurt, surf, church, purse, nurse

Read a mixed column aloud. Her, bird, and turn share the vowel sound. The letters in the middle change. That is the whole difficulty of this group: one sound, three spellings.

Why this pattern is hard

Reading Universe says these words look like closed syllables, yet the vowel is not the short sound of a closed syllable. A student who reads car as /k/ /a/ /r/, the way they read cat, will miss the chunk.

The second snag is spelling. Because er, ir, and ur sound alike, a child can read bird and still write berd or burd. Reading Universe says students need repeated practice with these patterns, in isolation and in connected text, so they can map which spelling to use.

A story about a bossy letter does not fix that. The student still has to hear /ar/, /or/, and /er/ as wholes, then remember which letters spell /er/ in each word.

How to teach ar, or, er, ir, and ur

Reading Universe suggests ar and or first, because they are easier to hear and spell and more consistent, then er, ir, and ur. A first-grade classroom video on that page shows the /er/ spellings after students can handle the clearer ones.

Treat the chunk the way students already treat a digraph. Literacy Learn points back to digraphs for that idea: two letters, one sound. The ch in chin is one sound, and chin has three sounds. In car, the ar is one chunk at the vowel. The vowel teams lesson is a useful neighbor, because students have already read two letters as one vowel sound. Here the second letter is r.

A lesson can run like this.

• Say /ar/ and show ar. Read arm, car, star, farm. Tap the chunk once, not as a short vowel plus r.
• Sort pictures or words into /ar/ and /or/ only. Add /er/ on a later day.
• When /er/ starts, read her, bird, and turn in one sitting so students hear the match, then spell each word from the column it came from.
• Dictate four words from one spelling. Do not mix er, ir, and ur in the first dictation.
• Read a sentence that uses only the spelling of the day.

For kindergarten through 3rd grade, the What Works Clearinghouse practice guide includes decoding, word parts, and writing words students can recognize. It also places connected text in the daily plan, in the service of accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.

One honest limit: hearing /er/ does not tell the student whether to write er, ir, or ur. The sound lesson and the spelling lesson are different jobs.

Books for the chunk

After ar is readable in a list, students need sentences that keep the chunk intact. The K-2 Decodable Books: 100 Phonics Mini-Books + Wall Cards are an instant digital download: nothing ships, and the license is one teacher, one classroom.