Welcome! I’m glad you are here! In this post, I will share some really fun activities for the r-controlled vowels er, ir, ur. All the activities are easy to do and simple to prepare. They can be used by parents who homeschool or who just want to teach their children phonics skills – no teaching experience needed! They can also be used in the classroom for preschool, kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade children. The r-controlled vowel activities are great for independent practice in literacy centers or for small group instruction. However you use them, these activities for r controlled vowels are a great way to help your child learn the sounds of er, ir, and ur in a playful and fun way. Please read on for ways to make learning to read a joyful journey for your child – and for you!
Is Your Child Ready for Activities for R-Controlled Vowels (Er Ir UR)?
If your child has learned all the short vowel sounds, the consonant sounds, and can sound out consonant-vowel-consonant words*, she might be ready to add r-controlled vowels to her toolbox of phonics skills. Many Bossy R words are high-frequency words – in other words, they show up a lot in books that children read. Because they are so common, I think it is a good idea to introduce r-controlled vowel combinations early on. Fun r-controlled vowels activities are a great way to do this because learning through play helps children learn quickly and it helps the children retain what they have learned.
*Note: for clarification: the short vowel sounds are the common sounds of the vowels a, e, i, o, and u. Consonants are all letters other than a, e, i, o, and u. For ideas and activities for teaching letter sounds to your child, please see my post linked below!
Before You Begin Activities for R-Controlled Vowels
Before you jump into the r-controlled vowel activities, briefly introduce the r controlled vowel sounds of er ir and ur. I recommend using letter tiles, magnetic letters, or a moveable alphabet for this. Using letters that a child can touch, hold, and manipulate is an effective way to engage the senses, which is not only enjoyable for children, it also helps them learn and retain information better and more quickly. If you need to keep things simple, you can write the letters on a whiteboard or piece of paper instead, but I highly recommend using a physical alphabet if possible!
First, review the short vowels with your child. Ask him to tell you which letters are vowels. The vowels are the letters a, e, i, o, and u.
Place the letters e, i, and u in front of your child. Point one vowel at a time and ask your child to tell you the short sound of the vowel. If he is having trouble, help him as much as he needs.
After you review the short vowel sounds, place the letter R in front of your child. Tell her that the letter R is a very bossy letter. We call it Bossy R because it is so bossy! Bossy R likes to boss around vowels. It makes them say a different sound than they usually make.
Place the letter R in front of the e, i, and u, one at a time. Tell your child that when Bossy R comes around, the e, i, and u get mad and they growl! They make an er sound (make the sound that comes at the end of her or the middle of bird). You can get theatrical with this – make a voice for Bossy R, be silly, make your child laugh – have a good time together!
Now have your child spend a few minutes sounding out some er, ir, and ur words. You can spell some er, ir, and ur words for your child to read with your letter tiles or moveable alphabet, or use the word cards below (you can find the pdf at the end of the post). Use the following word list:
ER words: her, fern, verb
IR words: sir, bird, dirt, girl
UR Words: fur, burn, turn, hurt
*Note: the letter combination ER is most commonly found at the end of a word in comparative adjectives – such as faster, stronger, taller, smaller, etc.. The ER letter combination is very common in the English language, but not very common in single syllable words. Your child might not encounter ER very often until he is ready to read multisyllabic words. This is mostly for you to know and explain at a later time – you do not need to share this information with your child at this time, unless you think it will be helpful to her (and not confusing!).
If your child is getting the hang of the r-controlled vowel sound of er, ir, and ur, you can move on to the activities for r-controlled vowels for some fun practice with this vowel pattern. If you have spent more than 5-10 minutes on introducing the r-controlled vowel sound, or if your child is getting tired or losing interest, save the extra practice for tomorrow. If your child is struggling, or getting frustrated, stop and come back to r-controlled vowel words another day. Do not push your child and do not worry! He will get it when he is ready! I promise. Trust the timing of his development and revisit the concept in a day, a week, or a month. When he is ready he will catch on.
Is your child ready to move on to some fun phonics activities for practicing Bossy R sounds! If so, read on!
Fun Activities for R-Controlled Vowels ER, IR, UR
Now that you have introduced the sounds of ER, IR, and UR, it’s time to do some fun hands-on activities for r-controlled vowels! These activities can be used as extra practice in addition to another phonics program, in place of r-controlled vowels worksheets, or they can be used as stand alone lesson plans for your homeschool or classroom. There are lots of different ways you can use these r-controlled vowels activities for fun and effective learning!
R-Controlled Vowels Activities: The IRbURgER Shop
In this fun phonics game your child will practice the sounds of ER, IR, and UR while making “irburgers”!
All you need is a color printer, some white cardstock, and the Irburger printables (below). You can also choose to laminate the irburger pieces so they will be nice and durable. I highly recommend taking the time to do so if you are planning to use this activity for multiple children or for English Language Arts centers. It’s an easy way to help them last!
Instructions:
- Print all four irburger pages (the free printable files are below)
- Laminate the pages (optional, but highly recommended)
- Cut out all the irburger pieces
- Gather some fun items from the play kitchen if you have one – some little plates, a spatula, a fry pan, etc. Or you can use real ones if you prefer. It can also be fun to gather up some stuffed animals or dolls that can be “customers” for the Irburger Shop. If you have a small group of children, it’s a great idea to have one child be the “chef” and the other kids be the customers. That way, lots of kids get to practice r- controlled vowels at the same time.
- Teach or remind your child that er, ir, and ur all make the same sound. Make the sound for your child (it is the sound found in the middle of her, hurt, and bird).
- Now it’s time to make irburgers! Set up shop with your plates and utensils. “Order” what you want on your irburger, or ask the children who are “customers” to order (or have the dolls or stuffed animals place their orders!)
- Instruct your child to read the words on the parts of the irburgers as the orders are placed and he or she assembles the irburgers.
- If you there are children who are customers, ask them to read the words on the parts of their irburgers as they “eat” them.
- You can be super silly and theatrical while you are doing this. Make it into a super fun game by expressing disgust or indignation – for example, “Verb cheese! I hate verb cheese! This is NOT what I ordered!” and then throw the slice of cheese that says verb on it. Or, “Curl tomatoes! I absolutely LOVE curl tomoatoes! Yum!” Then pretend to devour the tomato with gusto. The more over the top you are, the more your child will love it!
- Give your child help as needed by reminding him or her of the sounds of er, ir, ur and any other letters. You do not want your child to get frustrated or overwhelmed – give him the support he needs to enjoy the journey.
- When your child loses interest in the activity, or shows signs of fatigue you’re all done! Don’t push her – she only needs 5-15 minutes of practice a day, This is plenty of prqactice as long as you are consistent.
More Activities for R-Controlled Vowels
If your child enjoyed this r-controlled vowel activity, I have several more that he will love!
AR R-Controlled Vowel Activities
The following post will show you how to introduce the vowel-r combination AR. I actually recommend starting with AR when introducing r-controlled vowels, so you might want to do the AR r-controlled vowel activities before the ER, IR, UR ones.
More Activities for R-Controlled Vowels ER IR UR
This post has more ER IR UR r-controlled vowels activities. It gives you activities for introducing the r-controlled vowels ER, IR, and UR through music, and some really simple and fun multisensory activities for practicing the ER IR and UR sound. There are some great r-controlled vowels activities that require little to no preparation in this post, so if you need a simple, low-prep approach, please check it out!
R-Controlled Vowel Activities for OR
This post will show you how to teach your child the sound of OR through fun multi sensory activities that are great for independent work with a single child or a small group of children.
Thank you for visiting! I hope you and your child have enjoyed these activities for learning r-controlled vowels. Please come again and have fun learning!
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