Word family
The -are word family
The answer
The -are word family is every one-syllable word that ends in the rime are, said /air/. Our lexicon has 17 public words in it: 8 with one consonant first, 8 with a blend and 1 with a digraph or silent-letter pair.
What is in this family?
The are family says /air/, an r-controlled sound, and it has rivals: air (hair, fair) and ear (bear, wear), both in our rhyme table. That makes it a family to teach for reading first and spelling second. The final e is silent, and the a and r together make the vowel. Several words have a homophone spelled air: hare and hair, fare and fair, stare and stair, pare and pair.
The words, sorted by what comes before the rime
One consonant before the rime
| Word | Onset + rime | Readable after |
|---|---|---|
| care | c + are | Lesson 112 |
| dare | d + are | Lesson 112 |
| rare | r + are | Lesson 112 |
| bare | b + are | Lesson 112 |
| fare | f + are | Lesson 112 |
| hare | h + are | Lesson 112 |
| mare | m + are | Lesson 112 |
| pare | p + are | Lesson 112 |
A blend before the rime
| Word | Onset + rime | Readable after |
|---|---|---|
| spare | sp + are | Lesson 112 |
| square | squ + are | Lesson 112 |
| scare | sc + are | Lesson 112 |
| stare | st + are | Lesson 112 |
| blare | bl + are | Lesson 112 |
| flare | fl + are | Lesson 112 |
| glare | gl + are | Lesson 112 |
| snare | sn + are | Lesson 112 |
A digraph or silent-letter pair before the rime
| Word | Onset + rime | Readable after |
|---|---|---|
| share | sh + are | Lesson 112 |
Word ladder: change one sound at a time
Every step is a real word from the list, and each one changes exactly one sound. Say the change aloud before the student writes the new word.
| Step | Word | The change |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | care | start here |
| 2 | dare | change /k/ to /d/ |
| 3 | rare | change /d/ to /r/ |
| 4 | share | change /r/ to /sh/ |
| 5 | bare | change /sh/ to /b/ |
| 6 | fare | change /b/ to /f/ |
| 7 | hare | change /f/ to /hh/ |
| 8 | mare | change /hh/ to /m/ |
| 9 | pare | change /m/ to /p/ |
| 10 | spare | add /s/ |
Rhymes spelled another way
These words rhyme with the family but spell the rime differently, so they belong to other families. Expect students to mix them up when spelling.
| Spelling | Words |
|---|---|
| -air | air, fair, hair, pair, chair, stair, lair, flair |
| -ear | bear, wear, swear, pear |
| -eir | their, heir |
| -ere | there, where |
| -err | err |
How do you teach it?
Teach are once students read r-controlled ar. Contrast car and care so students hear that the e changes the vowel. Build single consonants first (care, dare, bare, fare), then blends (scare, stare, spare, glare, snare).
"Here's a-r-e. It says /air/. Watch: c, are, care. Sc, are, scare. Now a tricky pair. Stare, s-t-a-r-e, means to look. Stair, s-t-a-i-r, is a step. Same sound, different spelling, different meaning."
What is the common error, and the fix?
Spellers write "cair", or "stair" for stare, picking a different spelling of the same sound. The fix is meaning plus the family: if the word means to look hard, it is stare; the air spelling is a step. Homophone pairs are worth a short lesson of their own.
Sort it: a hands-on activity
Sort are and air cards (care, hair, stare, stair, fare, fair). Students read each one and say a sentence with it to show which meaning goes with which spelling.
How this list was built
Every word comes from our lexicon of about 19,000 common words, each checked against a pronouncing dictionary and split into spelling units. Words a student meets in our assessments and progress-monitoring probes are left out, so practicing a list never rehearses a test. A family is every one-syllable base word (no suffix, not a compound) whose rime, the vowel unit and every unit after it, has the same spelling and the same sounds, so bead and bread are in different families. Ladders use only words from the list, and each step changes exactly one sound.
"Readable after" is the first lesson in the lesson sequence at which our decodability engine finds every sound-spelling in the word taught; "not taught" means the word has a spelling the sequence does not cover, so it is read with help. You can check your own lists and passages with the free decodable text checker.
Questions people ask
How many words are in the -are family?
Our lexicon has 17 one-syllable words ending in are that a student can practice. Words used in our assessments are left out, so a few common words may be missing from the list.
Is the word are in this family?
No. The word are rhymes with car, not care. It is an irregular word, which is why it is usually taught as a heart word.
What is a word ladder?
A chain of real words where each step changes one sound: swap a sound, add one, or take one away. Students say the change before they write it, which trains them to hear every sound in the word.