R-controlled family · 12 words

Words that rhyme with "alert"

The -ert family is r-controlled. When a vowel is followed by r, the r pulls the vowel into a new sound — neither short nor long, but a "bossy r" sound. Every word below ends in -ert and rhymes with "alert".

How "bossy r" reshapes the vowel

R-controlled vowels are one of the trickier phonics patterns because the r and the vowel fuse into a single sound — you can't separate them. In -ert, the r-controlled /ɜːr/ (as in "her") you hear isn't really an a, e, i, o, or u standing alone; it's a vowel-plus-r blend. English has three r-controlled sounds (/ɜːr/, /ɑːr/, /ɔːr/) spelled in many different ways (er, ir, ur, ar, or). Children often confuse er, ir, and ur because all three spell the same /ɜːr/ sound. Reading the chunk as one unit is the key to fluency. All 12 words in this hub share the -ert ending.

Try the rhyme aloud

  1. Match it: "alert" rhymes with "alert" and "dirt" — same ending, same sound.
  2. Echo it: Say "dessert, alert, dirt" aloud and feel how each ends the same way.
  3. Stretch it: Now add "assert" — four words, one ending, all in the -ert family.

All 12 words ending in -ert

A (3)

alert 5 letters assert 6 letters avert 5 letters

B (3)

bert 4 letters burt 4 letters blurt 5 letters

C (1)

curt 4 letters

D (4)

dessert 7 letters dirt 4 letters divert 6 letters disconcert 10 letters

E (1)

exert 5 letters

Related rhyme families

Other rhyme families that share sounds or spellings with -ert.

Teaching this rhyme family

  • Teach -ert as a single chunk, not as a vowel + an r — there's no separate vowel sound to hear.
  • Show how er, ir, ur can all spell the same sound (her, bird, fur) so spelling has to be memorised, not just sounded out.
  • Use word families to build fluency — when the chunk stays the same, kids only have to decode the start of the word.