r-Controlled Vowels

Graphemes that represent a vowel phoneme and also contain a letter “r” are called r-controlled vowels.

Click on the graphemes next to the mouth animations below to hear the most common r-controlled vowels in Australian and British English (note that they are pronounced differently by American English speakers, with the phoneme /r/ pronounced) . They are presented in the order they are taught in ReadingDoctor® Online.

er like in her:

Also found in words such as fern, perm and alert. Represents the vowel phoneme /ɜ/ in Australian and British English.

Also found in words such as dirt, girl and third. Represents the vowel phoneme /ɜ/ in Australian and British English.

ur like in turn:

Also found in words such as burn, surf and curly. Represents the vowel phoneme /ɜ/ in Australian and British English.

ar like in car:

Also found in words such as far, part and smart. Represents the vowel phoneme /a/ in Australian and British English.

After learning about the most common r-controlled vowels, students are taught to decode words, like:

abort, alarm, alert, apart, arc, arch, archer, arm, army, art, bar, barb, barber, bark, barn, bird, blur, born, burger, burn, burnt, burst, car, card, carp, cart, carve, charm, chart, chirp, church, churn, cork, corn, corner, curb, curl, curler, curly, curve, dark, dart, dirt, dirty, far, farm, fart, fern, first, fork, form, fort, forty, fur, girl, hard, harm, harp, harsh, her, herb, herd, horn, horse, hurl, hurt, jar, jerk, lord, march, mark, marker, mars, marsh, nerve, north, nurse, orb, orbit, order, organ, park, part, party, perch, perm, porch, pork, port, scar, scarf, scorch, scorn, serve, shard, shark, sharp, shirt, short, skirt, smart, snarl, snort, sort, spark, sport, spurt, squirm, squirt, star, start, stir, stork, storm, story, surf, swirl, tar, tart, third, thirst, thirty, thorn, torch, torn, turn, twirl, urn, whirl, yard, yarn,