Teaching AR and OR R-Controlled Vowel Words with Phonics

Teaching AR and OR R-Controlled Vowel Words with Phonics

Hey, y'all! Phonics centers have become a central part of our daily practice and the kids are growing by leaps and bounds. These r-controlled phonics centers with ar and or words have become a huge hit! And happy kids equals a happy classroom!

Ar and or words are easier for students to distinguish between than /er/ words are. This makes them a great place to start when teaching r-controlled words. The kids can hear the difference so much easier. 

After we talk about what each of the pictures represent, we sort them by sound. I like to put velcro dots on the sorting boards and pieces. This makes them stay better and makes it easier for us to tell which cards go with which phonics game. 

We also spend a lot of time practicing writing the new spelling pattern. These read and write cards make it easy to practice both handwriting and spelling. I also love that it gives my shyer and more introverted kids an individual game choice. We don't all want to play with a partner all the time!

For our more talkative times, the kids play phonics Bump games, the reading race games, memory, or the roll and read games. These allow them to help each other read words they may not be sure of and build speaking, listening, and social skills. 

New to this set is an ABC order puzzle. Students put the words in alphabetical order and the puzzle pieces make a picture. If you want additional accountability, have students write the words in ABC order when they are finished. 

At the end of the week, we play a Scoot game to assess students on their progress learning these new spelling patterns. We also save the cards to play quiz-quiz-trade with during our morning meeting. It gives students additional practice without feeling like drill-and-kill. 

You can find this set of ar and or r-controlled words phonics games in my TPT store here. It's also part of a larger growing bundle designed to last you the whole school year. You can find it here. 

I hope this helps make your phonics centers a little more engaging. I'm always adding new things to my TPT store so be sure to follow me for all of the latest ideas, resources, and freebies.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you soon!

Stay cozy,