When the /r/ sound is paired with a vowel, it tends to change how that vowel is pronounced. For this reason, we refer to any [vowel+r] combination as an R controlled vowel. In most cases this combination produces the “er” sound, as in her. Believe it or not, There are actually 5 ways to make the “er” sound!

A fun way to explain this to children is that the R is a very bossy sound. He likes to tell the little vowels what sound they can say. The R controlled phonograms are: OR, AR, IR, UR, EAR, WOR, ER

Watch this video for fun ways to remember each R controlled vowel combination!

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Here are some fun R controlled Vowel Activities:

Adorable R Controlled Vowel SONG

Bossy R Board Game from The Measured Mom

A quick note about /wor/ from The Logic of English

Next up is STEP 5: Long Vowels