R-controlled family · 11 words

Words that rhyme with "court"

The -ort 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 -ort and rhymes with "court".

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 -ort, the a single vowel sound 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 11 words in this hub share the -ort ending.

Try the rhyme aloud

  1. Match it: "court" rhymes with "court" and "extort" — same ending, same sound.
  2. Echo it: Say "deport, court, extort" aloud and feel how each ends the same way.
  3. Stretch it: Now add "distort" — four words, one ending, all in the -ort family.

All 11 words ending in -ort

A (1)

athwart 7 letters

C (5)

court 5 letters consort 7 letters cavort 6 letters comport 7 letters contort 7 letters

D (2)

deport 6 letters distort 7 letters

E (3)

extort 6 letters exhort 6 letters escort 6 letters

Related rhyme families

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

Teaching this rhyme family

  • Teach -ort 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.