R-Controlled Vowel Sound Spellings
Written by: Brianna Guild, MHSc SLP(C)
Date: April 27, 2026
If you need a quick reference for R-controlled vowel sounds and their spellings, this blog is for you.
The charts below outline the different spellings of what are commonly referred to as the R-controlled vowel sounds. They are sometimes also referred to as “bossy R” vowels by educators, or vocalic R by speech-language pathologists. Regardless of the term you use, the same holds true for these sounds: when the “r” sound immediately follows a vowel, it changes the vowel sound, creating a new blended sound (e.g., “ar”, “er”, “or”) rather than the usual “short” or “long” vowel sound.
Please note that the sounds “air”, “eer”, and “ire” are each made up of two sounds (“air” = “ai” + “er,” “eer” = “ee” + “er,” “ire” = “i” + “er”). Additionally, pronunciation can vary depending on a speaker’s accent or dialect, which causes variation in how sounds and words are pronounced.
Colour key for R-controlled vowel spellings:
Green = most common spelling
Yellow = less common to infrequent spellings
Blue = rare spellings
People may write/refer to these sounds many different ways, so here’s a quick reference for that too:
Why are these sounds written different ways?
- Educators generally refer to these sounds as as R-controlled vowels or bossy R vowels, and may use a common spelling to represent the sound in writing (e.g., “ar”, “er”, “or”).
- Speech-Language Pathologists and Linguists use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), an internationally recognized set of phonetic symbols that follows a strict one-to-one correspondence between sounds and symbols (e.g., car = /kɑɹ/). It is also worth noting that in phonetics, [ɹ] (a turned r) is the precise IPA symbol for the standard English “r” sound (a voiced postalveolar approximant), while [r] represents a trilled or rolled “r” sound (like in Spanish). In general English transcription, /r/ is often used to represent the English “r” sound for simplicity, even though it technically refers to a trill.
Need more sound-spelling reference charts?
Check out:
Here are R-controlled vowel sound word sorts to help students learn or review the different spellings of each sound: R-Controlled Vowels Bossy R Sort Sounds by Spelling
Join the SLP Literacy Corner email newsletter to get access to exclusive free resources, including a free sample of “long A” sorting pages (same format as the R-controlled sorting pages). Sign up here!
Here are some literacy activities focusing on R-controlled vowel sounds:
References:
Fry, E. (2004). Phonics: A Large Phoneme-Grapheme Frequency Count Revised. Journal of Literacy Research, 36 (1), 85-98. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15548430jlr3601_5
Ginsberg, M. (2020). Reading Simplified Full Code Chart.
Tools for Clear Speech. (n.d.). R-controlled vowels. https://tfcs.baruch.cuny.edu/r-controlled-vowels/