Talk About Rhyming Words

Learning rhyming words helps children figure out sounds and endings of words that often look the same. It also helps your child to notice the first sound of a word and that it is different from another sound in a word. These things, with the alphabet, help kids learn parts of words and to link those sounds to the letters.

Say things like:

• (Reading) “Pull the blue jeans, button and ZIP. On with the socks, and now for a FLIP.” Did you hear a rhyming word? (Put emphasis on the rhyming word and read it again. Tell them if they don’t know)
• ZIP and FLIP rhyme, they sound the same, but are not. What else rhymes with zip? (Tip, hip, slip, lip, rip)
• You listen for rhyming words while I read. You tell me if you hear a rhyme. (Say the rhyme more loudly and slowly, even more if they don’t get it on the first try, or maybe pause before the word) “Practice my lesson. Soon time to EAT. Help with the dinner, Mmmmm, what a (Pause) TREAT”. Did you hear the rhyme that time?

Suggested Book: All by Myself (Aliki)
Reason for Book Choice: A good book with things children like to do on their own as well as rhyming sing song verse all the way through. (Dr. Suess, ABC also rhymes)

*Excerpted from Development of Emergent Literacy in English Language Learning Children Through Parent Shared Reading by Tanya L. Wren, Pathways Children Centre, Windsor, Ontario and Genese Warr-Leeper , University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario.

*Warr-Leeper, G., Wren, T., & K. Washington (2006). Facilitating emergent literacy skills in English language learners: The value of team work and collaboration. OSLA Connection Journal, 2(2), 12-16.