Last week we asked and answered: “Why should we care about syllables?” This week we are asking: “Why should we care about rhyming?”
The answer is really quite similar to why syllables are important. Rhyming helps boost our understanding of the parts of words, helps us to recognize word families, can be a great way to engage with words and be silly. All of this helps to increase reading fluency! Rhyming helps draw new readers or soon-to-be-readers into text as well! Child who aren’t able to fully read on their own are still able to complete a sentence and help read a story with a parent, teacher, or caregiver. Rhyming can also help support memory! Who knew!
Work with your child to increase their ability to notice commonalities between words through rhyming using high-interest activities like the ones below!
- Reading rhyming books, such as Dr. Seuss books- the simpler and more predictable or repetitive the better. Practice leaving out words at the end of lines and see if your child can guess what to fill in given the clues from the rhyme and the pictures!
- Playing Simon Says using silly made-up words that rhyme with the real body part or action name, e.g. “Touch your belbow (elbow)!” and “Rub your zummy (tummy)!” and “Wave your marms (arms)!”
- Grabbing some coloring pages and having your child search through for one to color that rhymes with a given word! For example, if you want them to color a pig, “Let’s color the one that rhymes with ‘shig!'” If you want them to color Mickey Mouse, you could say, “Let’s color the one that rhymes with Zickey Zouse!” Or, for another option, you could open a book and tell them “Find me something that rhymes with ‘mish'” if it’s a book that includes a fish.
- Put your socks or puppets to work and use a creative, funny voice to start listing rhyming words for your child, only to throw one in that does not rhyme. Have one puppet say, for example, “Socks, box, fox, lox, tocks, knocks, see.” Have your puppet respond in a faux-angry voice–“WAIT! See does not rhyme!” Repeat this over and over with different sets of rhyming words and see if your child starts to chime in with your angry puppet, “____ does not rhyme!”
Have a favorite you don’t see below? Leave us a comment below!
- Llama Llama Red Pajama
- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
- Brown Bear Brown Bear
- Room on the Broom
- Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site
- The Pout Pout Fish
- Cat in the Hat
- There’s a Wocket in my Pocket
- One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
- There’s a Bear in My Chair
- There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (and all the other There Was an Old Lady… books)
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