R-controlled vowels chart
An r-controlled vowel is a vowel followed by r, where the r changes the vowel's sound: the a in car is not the a in cat. Children call it bossy r. This chart lists each spelling with its sound and three words.
Free printable PDF, 1st grade to 3rd grade.
One page, black and white, prints the same every time.
What is on the sheet
Bossy r
| Spelling | Sound | Words |
|---|---|---|
| ar | as in car | star, farm, shark |
| or | as in fork | corn, storm, horse |
| er | as in her | fern, herd, sister |
| ir | the same sound as er | bird, girl, shirt |
| ur | the same sound as er | fur, turn, nurse |
More spellings with r
| Spelling | Sound | Words |
|---|---|---|
| air | as in chair | hair, fair, stair |
| are | as in chair | care, share, square |
| ear | as in chair | bear, pear, wear |
| ear | as in hear | ear, near, year |
| eer | as in hear | deer, cheer, steer |
| ore | as in fork | more, store, shore |
| oar | as in fork | board, roar, soar |
| ear | as in her | earth, learn, early |
When w comes first
| Spelling | Sound | Words |
|---|---|---|
| war | as in fork | warm, dwarf, swarm |
| wor | as in her | word, work, worm |
Why the r is bossy
When r comes right after a vowel, the vowel no longer makes its short or long sound. The a in car is neither the a in cat nor the a in cake, so a child who sounds out c, a, r letter by letter gets stuck. Reading ar, or, er, ir and ur as one chunk fixes that.
Three spellings, er, ir and ur, make the same sound, so the hard part is spelling, not reading. Nothing in the sound of bird, her or fur says which one to use, so each word's spelling has to be learned. Grouping the words by spelling on a word wall helps them stick.
The longer spellings
The second table has the r sounds children meet in 2nd grade. The spellings air, are and the ear in bear all make the sound in chair, and the ear in hear sounds like eer in deer. The spelling ear is on the chart three times because it has three sounds: bear, hear and earth. The last two rows show what a w does to the vowel after it: war sounds like the or in fork, and wor sounds like the er in her.
CCSS does not name r-controlled vowels in a standard of their own. They fall under the phonics standards for 1st and 2nd grade (RF.1.3 and RF.2.3), and most programs teach ar, or, er, ir and ur in 1st grade and the rest in 2nd.
Common questions
- Is r-controlled the same as bossy r?
- Yes. Bossy r is the classroom name for the same idea: the r is the boss and changes the vowel in front of it.
- Why does the word are not sound like care?
- The word are is an exception: it sounds like the ar in car. In care, share and square, the are spelling makes the sound in chair, which is the sound the chart gives it.