What Are R-Controlled Vowels?

When an ‘r’ follows a vowel, the ‘r’ changes the sound that the vowel makes.  That vowel is called an ‘r-controlled vowel’.  Sometimes teachers refer to the ‘r’ as the ‘bossy r’ because the ‘r’ bosses the vowel into making a new sound. It seems like a simple concept, but it can be very hard for students to know which one to use… after all, there are five of them! 

In light of this, students need constant exposure to the r-controlled vowels in words. That’s where our set of r-controlled vowel posters comes in!

Displaying these posters will increase your students’ awareness of common spelling patterns and will make your classroom look bright and colourful as well!

A Great Addition to Your Classroom Phonics Display

The set of posters highlights each of the r-controlled vowels – ‘ar’, ‘er’, ‘ir’, ‘or’ and ‘ur’. Each poster shows the vowel combination and several words and images containing each sound.

In addition to displaying these posters in your classroom, you might like to try some of these great ideas!

📝 Create a fill-in-the-blank worksheet by removing selections of text.

📂 Place copies in students’ homework folders for reference.

Before You Download

This resource prints as a PDF. Use the download button to access the resource file.

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