Teaching · Reading Intervention

When r follows the vowel,
the vowel changes.

In an r-controlled syllable the r takes over the vowel: car is not “cat” with an r, and er, ir and ur in her, bird and fur all say /er/. Deal words by pattern and shape, with a phrase on each card and made-up words to check decoding.

Make a set of wordsWhat you get
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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Reading Intervention toolkit, $49 for 51 items.

Make a set of r-controlled words

The worked example is made up: a second grader on ar and or, and a third grader on er, ir and ur. Saved on this device only.

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What you get

Teaching · Reading Intervention$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
A set of 6, 10 or 16 r-controlled words chosen by pattern (ar, or, er, ir, ur) and shape (one syllable, two syllables, made-up words), each with its syllable break, the sound and a phrase, plus notes on errors.
Who it is for
Reading interventionists, special education teachers, classroom teachers teaching phonics and tutors working with a structured literacy sequence.
Format
Browser card maker with saved sets. Prints the words as cut-out cards or as a list for a lesson plan or home reading; presents one word at a time for a screen at the table; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); exports and imports a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Reading Intervention toolkit ($49) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Reading Intervention space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about access, an order or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Teach ar and or first; they each have one sound.
  2. Have the student box the vowel and r together before reading.
  3. Add er, ir and ur as one sound with three spellings.
  4. Move to two-syllable words and read each phrase.
  5. Note errors and print the set for the next lesson.

Make a set of words

What an r-controlled syllable is

Three r-controlled sounds, five spellings/ar/Spelled arcar, park, garden/or/Spelled orfork, storm, corner/er/Spelled er, ir or urher, bird, furSame sound, threespellingsThree r-controlled sounds, five spellings/ar/Spelled arcar, park, garden/or/Spelled orfork, storm, corner/er/Spelled er, ir or urher, bird, furSame sound, three spellings
Drawn for this page. Sounds vary by accent; in some, ar and or are said without a strong r.

The rule

A vowel followed by r in the same syllable makes a new sound, neither short nor long. Read the vowel and the r as one unit: ar, or, er, ir, ur.

One sound, three spellings

er, ir and ur usually all say /er/. Reading them is straightforward; spelling them takes word knowledge, so sort and practice the spellings separately.

Watch the syllable break

The r controls the vowel only in the same syllable. In words like “carol” or “very”, the r starts the next syllable and the vowel is not r-controlled.

Sources

  1. Moats, L. C. (1994). The missing foundation in teacher education: Knowledge of the structure of spoken and written language. Annals of Dyslexia, 44, 81 to 102. PMID 24234047.
  2. Moats, L. C. (2020). Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers (3rd ed.). Brookes. Syllable types and spelling conventions.
  3. Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5 to 21.
  4. International Dyslexia Association. Structured literacy: phonology, sound-symbol association, syllables, morphology (dyslexiaida.org).

Words and phrases were written for this page; the example sets and students are made up. Syllable divisions follow the common structured literacy conventions, and dictionaries sometimes divide a word differently. Nothing you type is sent to Caveat. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.