The Importance of Rhyming

While getting my dyslexia certification, I learned that rhyme is one of the first ways that a child demonstrates phonological awareness (an important part of literacy development). I also learned that it is a very important milestone in the development of early literacy and crucial to reading and spelling.

I remember my last rhyming lesson because it was a huge challenge! I was teaching rhyming in a bilingual kindergarten classroom, when I realized how hard this concept is to teach and for students to learn.

I performed an informal pre-assessment to see how much help the students needed and they could not rhyme easy words, ‘lobo’ and ‘globo’ or ‘casa’ and ‘masa’.  As a result, I realized I had a lot of work ahead.

I began by demonstrating to students some rhyming cards that were shared with me by a colleague. We reviewed the pictures/vocabulary and matched words that rhymed using a pocket chart.  

I emphasized how to break words into smaller parts so that they could begin to recognize smaller parts in words. 

After much practice and manipulation of the cards, students were able to play various games with them at their centers.  I also used these matching cards.  Students loved them! The cards are from a Palabrimas kit.

Other activities I used were:

"Veo, veo"

• Identify words students can rhyme.
• Tell the students: "Veo con mi pequeño ojo algo que rima con la palabra...fresa."
• Students look around the classroom for something that rhymes with the word “fresa” (mesa).
• Ask the students to think of other words that rhyme with “fresa.”
• Ask the students: ¿Porqué riman las palabras fresa y mesa? They should be able to respond with “Las dos palabras terminan con ‘esa’”.
• Use the same procedure with the rest of the words.

·     “Dados de Rimas”

• Write 6 words on the die template and create a rhyme dice.
• Student rolls the die and then comes up with a rhyming word that rhymes with the word on the die.
• Students can also form sentences with the rhyming pair.

What have you used to teach rhyming to your students?