In today’s episode of The Education Connection, Robin shares exactly how she teaches the r-controlled vowels er, ir, and ur in her classroom — and why her students absolutely love it. After hearing Katie Garner explain that all three make the same “errrr” sound, Robin completely shifted her approach. Now she teaches the patterns, using a playful, hands-on activity with toy cars that instantly grabs kids’ attention.

You’ll hear how Robin labels cars with er, ir, and ur, lets students “drive” around the carpet, and then park their cars on matching word cards to build automatic recognition of spelling patterns. She also explains orthographic mapping in a simple, teacher-friendly way and walks through additional routines that help young readers truly understand these t ...