FREE Printable R Controlled Vowels Sort with “or” Sound Words that Say “er”

If your first grade or 2nd grader is working on r controlled vowels, you will love this fun sorting activity to seperate out or sound words that say er. This free printable phonics or sounds activity is a quick and easy way to play and learn!

or Sound

Wouldn’t it be nice if a group of letters always made the same sound? It would sure make teaching easier, and make reading a little less complicated especially for our little ones that have to work a little harder at reading. But that isn’t the case with learning English phonics. We see it with the vowel team /ea/. Those two little letters can make the short e sound (head), the long e sound (meat), and the long a sound (great).  And today we are going to see it with the letters /or/ and focus on when the r-contorlled vowel or says er.

Phonics Printable

Start by scrolling to the bottom of the post, under the terms of use, and click on the text link that says >>_____<<. The r controlled printable activity pdf file will open in a new window for you to save your freebie.

R controlled vowel

Did you know that there’s a type of vowel sound in English called an r-controlled vowel? It’s when the letter R changes the way a vowel sounds, making it say ‘er’. How cool is that? So next time you see an R in a word, remember it might just have the power to change the vowel sound!

When Does or Say er?

Even though we won’t necessarily teach this to our little ones, as adults it is often nice to know the “why” behind an English generalization….if there is one. We know that many times we can add /er/ to the end of a verb to create a noun. For example, run changes to runner and drive to driver.

But sometimes we use the /or/ to do the same thing. Normally, this happens when we are dealing with a word that has Latin ogins or when we are assigning an ability to someone.

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Using or with a Latin Word

A fun way to know if the word has a Latin origin is to add an “-ion” to the end of the root word. For example, you could turn “act” into “action.” That means “act” would also have an “-or” ending (actor). This will click 

Here are a few examples:

• Janitor meditator sculptor Tutor Realtor Author

Assign Abiltiy to Someone:

If I say, “She is the meditator.”

that shows she has the ability of someone to meditate…

“-or” Word Sort

Now obviously our young readers do not need to know all of that, but they do need to know that sometimes the “-or” will sometimes make the “er” sound. And that is what this sort is all about.

Phonics or sounds

1. • First print off the pages you would like to use. I recommend using card stock
   • Next, cut out the words
   • Finally, cut out the doctors that you would like to use, and then laminate if desired.

Phonics or sound

Place the doctors on a table and explain to your students that many times when we see the two letters /or/ it makes the the sound we hear in words like storm. But sometimes when we see the /or/ and we use /or/ sound it doensn’t right.

Read some world like actor or worst and use the the /or/ sound. Continue to explain that when that happens, we can try again with the /er/ sound.

• • w -/or/- k becomes w-/er/-k
  • mo/tor becomes mo/ter

or Sound words

Now hand them a word that you have cut out. Let them read it first having the /or/ make the /or/ sound. Ask them, “Is that a word?” If it is, then have them place it under the correct doctor.

If it isn’t say, “Let’s try it again with the /er/ sound.” When they acknowledge that this is a word, have them that word under the correct doctor. This word sort is a perfect way to have children practice reading the /or/ sound even when it makes the /er/ sound.