R-Controlled Syllables - The Reading and Spelling Rules That Nobody Taught You

We’re back with more reading and spelling rules that nobody taught us! Well, until we learned more about Structured Literacy and the “science” behind the English language.

When we teach reading and spelling words, we bucket them into the 6 Syllable Types because understanding the syllable types is integral in reading and spelling. If you’ve never heard of the six syllable types, not to worry! You can read more about them here!

Which brings us to today…

R-Controlled Syllables

An R-controlled syllable occurs when you have an R immediately following a vowel (a, e, i, o, or u). The “R” controls the vowel sound so it does not make a long or short vowel sound:

ar -

This pattern typically sounds like /R/ as in car. The “a” in this case almost sounds more like a short /o/ and so students will sometimes spell these words with an “or” because they hear that short /o/ vowel sound. Many students also struggle with this pattern because they think “R” alone can say /ar/ because we call the letter /ar/.

For more advanced students, we also teach that ar can say /er/ like in dollar. This only occurs in multisyllable words in the unaccented position.

or -

Next, we teach students that O-R sounds like /or/ as in corn. This is easy enough because they have seen the word “or” and can usually generalize this rule pretty easily. The only tricky piece here is that it can also say /er/ like in doctor. This is especially true when OR is used as a suffix meaning “a person who” (e.g., an actor acts).

er -

This pattern sounds like /r/ spider. This is the most common spelling pattern for /er/, especially in multisyllable words because ER is used as a suffix meaning “a person who” (e.g., a teacher teaches) or as a comparative meaning “more” (e.g., taller).

ir -

This pattern sounds like /r/ as in bird. This is the least common spelling pattern for /er/, but is often seen in some of our more basic words like girl, third, dirt and therefore may be seen more commonly in early reading.

ur -

This pattern sounds like /r/ as in turn. This is the second most common spelling pattern for /er/.

How To Teach R-Controlled Syllables - Reading Process

We always follow a step-by-step process to teach R-Controlled syllables:

1 - Find/color the vowel in red

This will help students visually identify the vowels more easily (which will help break down the word and determine syllable types).

2 - Determine if the vowel is followed by an R

If not, you may have a closed syllable or vowel team syllable (“w” and “y” can act as vowel teams).

3 - If the vowel is followed by an R, circle the vowel and the “r” in purple

If we have an R-controlled syllable we can determine which sound it will make (using the rules above).

4 - Read the syllable (remember the vowel sound is controlled by the “r”)

If there are multiple syllables, blend each syllable together to read the entire word. A syllable is a word or part of a word with one vowel sound so if there is more than one vowel followed by a consonant, the word has more than one syllable.

How To Teach R-Controlled Syllables - Spelling Process

1 - Identify how many syllables are in the word

We like to have students scoop the syllables, this is important because each syllable needs at least one vowel sound (which comes in very handy when differentiating between “r” and a vocalic /er/)

2 - Identify how many sounds are in the word

We like to have students underline or dot the number of sounds they hear.

3 - Identify the type of sound

Is the sound a vowel sound or a consonant sound? Is the vowel sound short or long? Is there an /r/ sound?

4 - Identify the type of syllable

This is important because specific syllable types have specific spelling rules. When spelling R-Controlled words, we want to start to use math to help us out until our visual recognition (or spell check!) can support us!

R-Controlled Syllable Spelling Rules

Let’s take a look at a few of the spelling rules that are specific to R-controlled syllables:

• ar usually says /R/; it can say /r/

• or usually says /or/; it can say /r/

• er is the most common spelling option for /r/ (especially in multisyllable words)

• ur is the second most common spelling option for /r/

• ir is the least common spelling option for /r/

Understanding these rules can take the guesswork out of spelling and can solidify our reading ability. We always tell students it’s our “why” behind why words are read and spelled in certain ways.

Explicitly Teaching R-Controlled Syllables

We follow a systematic progression of introducing each of the syllable types. We start with Closed Syllable Rules, progress to Magic E (VCE) Rules, and then onto R-Controlled (Bossy R) Rules!

When we teach a new pattern we start by sharing the pattern, having students practice writing the pattern while saying the sound(s) the pattern makes.

We provide a visual with a keyword. For example, if we were teaching the AR pattern we would provide a picture to show “car” and have students practice associating the AR pattern with the word “car.”

We then provide explicit instruction on the rules the pattern follows. For example, we use AR to spell /R/ ain the middle or at the end of syllable.

We move in a building progression from the sound level to the syllable/word level and then have students generalize to the sentence level, paragraph level, and beyond.

How do I get started?

If you need help mastering all these rules, we’ve got you. We put all the rules we teach together in our Comprehensive Rules Guide which you can grab here! It’s a fabulous place to get started.

Or, if you’re ready for the next step and you’re looking for comprehensive lesson materials to explicitly teach all of the phonogram patterns, you can check out our systematic phonics-based curriculum, Delivering SMARTER Intervention here.