Word family
The -ore word family
The answer
The -ore word family is every one-syllable word that ends in the rime ore, said /or/. Our lexicon has 17 public words in it: 9 with one consonant first, 5 with a blend, 2 with a digraph or silent-letter pair and 1 with no sound before the rime.
What is in this family?
The ore family is r-controlled, and its words rhyme with words spelled or and oar, which our rhyme table shows. Every word ends in an e that does nothing to the sound; it is simply how this rime is spelled. That makes ore a family students learn as a whole chunk rather than sound by sound. Words like more, store and shore are common enough to show up in early books.
The words, sorted by what comes before the rime
One consonant before the rime
| Word | Onset + rime | Readable after |
|---|---|---|
| bore | b + ore | Lesson 78 |
| core | c + ore | Lesson 78 |
| more | m + ore | Lesson 78 |
| wore | w + ore | Lesson 78 |
| sore | s + ore | Lesson 78 |
| tore | t + ore | Lesson 78 |
| fore | f + ore | Lesson 78 |
| lore | l + ore | Lesson 78 |
| pore | p + ore | Lesson 78 |
A blend before the rime
| Word | Onset + rime | Readable after |
|---|---|---|
| score | sc + ore | Lesson 78 |
| store | st + ore | Lesson 78 |
| swore | sw + ore | Lesson 78 |
| snore | sn + ore | Lesson 78 |
| spore | sp + ore | Lesson 78 |
A digraph or silent-letter pair before the rime
| Word | Onset + rime | Readable after |
|---|---|---|
| chore | ch + ore | Lesson 78 |
| shore | sh + ore | Lesson 78 |
No sound before the rime
| Word | Onset + rime | Readable after |
|---|---|---|
| ore | (none) + ore | Lesson 78 |
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 | bore | start here |
| 2 | core | change /b/ to /k/ |
| 3 | more | change /k/ to /m/ |
| 4 | wore | change /m/ to /w/ |
| 5 | sore | change /w/ to /s/ |
| 6 | score | add /k/ |
| 7 | store | change /k/ to /t/ |
| 8 | tore | take away /s/ |
| 9 | ore | take away /t/ |
| 10 | fore | add /f/ |
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 |
|---|---|
| -oar | oar, boar, roar, soar |
| -or | or, for, nor |
| -our | four, your, pour |
| -oor | door, floor |
| -ar | war |
How do you teach it?
Teach ore after students know or as a unit. Show "for" and "fore" side by side and say both: the same sound. Then build with single consonants (more, sore, tore, wore) and with blends and digraphs (store, score, snore, chore, shore).
"Our chunk is o-r-e, and it says /or/. The e doesn't say anything. Let's build: /m/, /or/, more. /s/ /t/, /or/, store. /sh/, /or/, shore. Read the whole column with me."
What is the common error, and the fix?
Spellers write "mor" or "stor", a sensible guess from the sound. The fix is to know the family: one-syllable words ending in /or/ are very often spelled ore. The rhyme table shows how few use or or oar instead.
Sort it: a hands-on activity
Mix cards from the ore family with the rhyming words spelled oar (boar, roar, soar). Students sort by spelling and see that the sound is the same in both piles. Ask which pile is bigger and use that as their spelling default.
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 -ore family?
Our lexicon has 17 one-syllable words ending in ore that a student can practice. Words used in our assessments are left out, so a few common words may be missing from the list.
Why do ore words end in e if the e is silent?
The e is part of how the rime is spelled. It does not change the sound, but more and mor would look different to a reader, and English settled on ore.
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.