4.1 Prepare for R-Controlled Vowels Instruction

Before you teach, you'll need to do a few things to get ready:

• Review the overview of r-controlled vowels so you feel comfortable talking about the sounds and syllable type with your students.
• Print the r-controlled vowels flash cards with pictures to introduce the spelling pattern to your students and add the cards to your flash card deck. 
• If you are using The Alphabet Queen story to teach r-controlled vowels, familiarize yourself with the story. It's a fun, interactive way to make the concept easy to remember. It's a great option if you work with young children!

Selecting Words for Your R-Controlled Vowel Lessons

Word selection is key! As you prepare for instruction, it is important to be intentional about the words you choose for your daily dictation lessons. Students should have plenty of practice reading and spelling words with the current skill. Here are some tips for selecting words for your r-controlled vowel dictation:

• Use the r-controlled word lists (opens in new window) for ideas for words to use in your lessons. You may want to write examples of r-controlled words on the back of your flash card to have them at the ready while you're teaching.
• Using the phonics continuum as a guide, select words with patterns or skills taught prior to r-controlled vowels to reinforce what students have already learned.
• Avoid pairing phonetically similar words, such as her and fur, too early so that students have time to solidify each pattern before comparing them.
• Select words that may be unfamiliar to students, like shard or herd, and words that have multiple meanings, like dart or stir, to deepen students' understanding of language and build vocabulary.
• Embed high-frequency words with r-controlled vowels — like for and start — into your phonics instruction to give students meaningful opportunities to practice reading and spelling them in isolation and in context.
• As students become more comfortable with spelling words that have r-controlled vowels, use the words in phrases and sentences in your dictation to add rigor to your lesson.

One way to introduce r-controlled vowel sounds is by telling students the Alphabet Queen story (based on The Alphabet King (opens in new window), an original story by dyslexia therapist Jennings Miller). This is a fun, interactive strategy that makes the concept of r-controlled vowels easy to remember. 

In the story, students learn that vowels are special letters that hold great importance. This is an essential concept that’s repeated throughout the phonics continuum because unlocking the sound of the vowel unlocks the word's pronunciation, and in turn the word's meaning. 

The Alphabet Queen story is made up of five parts that you read aloud with students over five separate lessons (they will not be consecutive). The story builds as your lessons on syllable types become more complex — starting with closed syllables, then introducing open syllables, magic 'e', r-controlled vowels, and 'y' as a vowel. You will tell this story during the lesson when you introduce each new phonics pattern. 

You’ll teach the part of the story on r-controlled syllables after students have learned about closed syllables, open syllables, and magic 'e'. In this variation, the consonant 'r' stands guard to protect the vowels, but he is jealous that the Alphabet Queen treasures the vowels most of all. So 'r' begins to take control. He pinches each vowel and changes its sound. Instead, the vowel makes a brand-new sound — neither short nor long. 

Here are some materials you’ll need to teach The Alphabet Queen.

Print the illustrated story for your whiteboard. You can cut out the letters or write them on sticky notes. As you tell the story aloud, you can move the letters in and out of the Queen’s protective pen. 

Download this ready-to-go The Alphabet Queen story illustrations (opens in new window) Google slides to project on your whiteboard. The letters can be dragged in and out of the protective pen with your cursor as you tell the story.

Here are some materials you might need for your lessons:

A flash card warm-up helps students' connect letters and sounds, builds fluency, and prepares them to read. During your warm-up, you can practice letter names and sounds, spelling patterns, and spelling rules you have previously taught with your class. 

You will need the 'ar', 'or', 'er', 'ir', and 'ur' flash cards with pictures, as well as the corresponding r-controlled vowel flash cards without pictures.

Use Flash Card Deck — All Letters and Sounds during your warm-up to have students practice any letter sounds they're still mastering. You can also use the flash cards without pictures to build words during your lesson.

Daily dictation can help students with listening skills, auditory memory, reading and spelling skills, language, and handwriting.

You can choose words, phrases, and sentences from this list to use during dictation.

Go to the resource hub for a complete collection of word lists, read sheets, and decodables for practicing reading words with r-controlled vowels.