It's Tricky to Rock a Rhyme!

While my students have NO idea who Run-DMC are, we can all appreciate the challenge of learning how to rhyme 🎶

Use these strategies to help your child with rhyming

1. Nursery Rhymes

Introducing your child to nursery rhymes helps with phonemic awareness, patterns, memory, and sequence. All of these foundational literacy skills help prepare your child for school! Sing them over and over again and encourage your child to join along. You can read nursery rhymes in books, repeat and sing from memory, or watch popular videos like Cocomelon to support rhyming skills.

Pro Tip: Have your child draw an illustration to match the nursery rhyme as you sing it aloud.

2. Rhyming Songs

My personal favorite is 'Down by the Bay'. I sing this song ALL year long and as students are more confident with rhyming they create their own rhymes! We start with me singing and them listening. Once they know the words I have them join in. Once they know what to expect I leave out the second word that rhymes and they shout it out! We sing this walking in line, while we wait, and pack up at the end of the day.

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🎵Down by the Bay, Where the Watermelons Grow
Back to my Home, I Dare not Go
For if I Do, My Mother Would Say,
Have You Ever Seen A Fox Putting on _____ (socks) ?
Down By the Bay! 🎵

3. Phonemic Awareness

There are many components of phonemic awareness but for today we'll focus on rhyming. Phonemic awareness is ORAL meaning that students have to listen closely to the sounds within words. This skill does NOT focus on visual cues or identifying the letters, that will come later! Once students can HEAR 👂 the rhyme in two words they'll be able to recognize the different parts within words.

4. Rhyme book

Using magazines, newspapers, printed images, or creating your own illustrations, your child can create their own rhyming book! This can also be used to focus on word families (-at, -an, -ag, -og, etc.) when your child is ready.

5. Read-Aloud Rhyming Books

Of course, practice makes perfect and the more rhyming words children are exposed to, the stronger their skillset will get! Here are some classic children's books that have excellent rhymes:

📕Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
📕Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
📕Green Eggs and Ham
📕Llama Llama Red Pajama
📕Giraffes Can't Dance
📕Goodnight Moon
📕I Spy Books
📕There Was An Old Lady Who... Series
📕Baa Baa Black Sheep
📕Room on the Broom
📕Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site

View from the Classroom

Rhyming is a skill set we work on ALL YEAR LONG. I am not exaggerating when I say all year, August through June. Once it 'clicks', students are able to rhyme like fiends... but until that moment it can be a painful process. We practice orally, visually with pictures, in songs, books, and every way imaginable. The students who are most successful are those that have been exposed to nursery rhymes early on and understand the rhythm even if they're not yet ready to identify a rhyme. Don't give up and remember, your child learns best when they're having FUN. If it's stopped being fun, take a break and try again later. Learning is a process 😁