Free Holiday Phonics Practice for R-Controlled Vowels
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We’re excited to give away 3 free, holiday-themed ugly Christmas sweater worksheets designed to help your students practice r-controlled vowels.
Why We Love It
This resource includes three free worksheets that combine the charm of ugly Christmas sweaters with essential phonics practice!
Each worksheet includes 16 images of ugly sweaters. Each sweater has a word written across the front, but the vowel letters are missing!
So students are tasked with choosing the r-controlled vowel letters to spell a real word.
👩🏼🏫 Visit these helpful posts to learn all about r-controlled vowels and the r-controlled syllable type.
There are three different worksheets for different practice with r-controlled vowels:
👉 Two worksheets focus on mixed practice with all r-controlled vowels: ar, er, ir, or, and ur. Kids will differentiate between the three r-controlled vowel sounds: /er/, /ar/, and /or/.
This ensures that students are exposed to a wide range of words, focusing on identifying and using each vowel sound correctly.
👉 The third worksheet hones in on spelling words with the /er/ sound. Kids will determine which grapheme to use—ER, IR, UR—to spell words correctly.
Since this can be a challenging skill, give students a dictionary for extra support as they work through this activity.
How to Use
Here’s how to use the worksheets for encoding and decoding practice:
- Identify the Blanks: Students will examine the letters on the ugly sweater and note where the sound is missing within each word (indicated by a blank space).
- Choose the Correct Option: They’ll test the r-controlled vowel options written on the stars, trying different sounds and spellings in the blank space.
- Select the Right Grapheme: Once they determine the correct vowel+R combination, students will color the star that has the correct r-controlled vowel and write the grapheme in the blank space on the sweater.
- Read the Words: Finally, students will read all the words on the sweaters, reinforcing their understanding of both pronunciation and spelling.
These worksheets work best for kids who are learning the sounds and spellings of r-controlled vowels.
They’re perfect for small group instruction, independent work, or homework for extra reinforcement.
👉 We recommend printing and displaying our free R-Controlled Vowel Anchor Chart for kids to reference as they complete this activity!
More FREE Holiday Phonics Resources
For more winter and holiday resources that make the learning process both effective and enjoyable, check these freebies out!
🚂 R-Controlled Roll & Read Holiday Train: Hop on the Santa Express with two FREE printable Santa Express Roll & Read board games for practicing decoding words with r-controlled vowels!
🎅🏻Elf on the Shelf Word Sorts: Help the Elf sort the words! Get a free printable no-prep version AND blank version for practice identifying and reading with any targeted phonics skills or spelling pattern!
⛄Winter Read & Match Compound Words: Get free Compound Word read-and-match printables with a holiday cookie theme and fun recording sheet!
❄ Holiday Word Mapping Printables: Practice phoneme-grapheme mapping with these 3 free Holiday-themed word mapping worksheets! They are Science of Reading aligned and feature fun seasonal imagery.
🎄Christmas CVC Worksheets: Get free printable holiday-themed Christmas worksheets to practice reading, writing, and building CVC words and short vowel sounds.
☃Snowball Word Building Activities: Get seven winter themed word building activity ideas for young learners, with letters and digraphs printed on snowballs!
We hope these resources bring joy and learning to your students this holiday season!
Download & Print
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➡️ More Freebies: Santa R-Controlled Roll & Read Games!