Rhyming Activities for Kindergarten & First Grade
Kindergarten and first grade is an exciting time in a child's life. They are full of curiosity and wonder, as this is the age where everything is still fresh and new. At this stage, children benefit from hands-on, interactive as well as repetitive activities. Rhyming activities can help children develop a phonemic awareness and expand their vocabularies.
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Introduce Rhyming Through Reading
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An ideal way to introduce children to rhyming is through reading. Numerous age-appropriate books feature rhyming as a focus. Select books that tell a story and capture a child's imagination with rhyme. One such book is "Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp" by Carol Diggory Shields. As you read through the story, try to keep up the rhyming meter and flow of the text by having the child clap along. After reading the story to the child a few times, stop right before a rhyming word and see if she can guess which word will come next. Allowing her to make up her own rhyming words will help increase her understanding of the nature of rhyming.
Play a Rhyming Game
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Engaging a child with a rhyming game is a useful tool for teaching rhyming. Play a rhyming version of the popular children's game "I Spy." While out walking or in a classroom with the child, the instructor can say, "I spy with my little eye, something that rhymes with the word...knee!" Have the child look around him to find a word that rhymes with the word knee such as tree or bee. Encourage him to also think of other words that rhyme with the word you supply. Point out any similarities between the words to the child. In the case of this example, you can show him that both words end with double 'e.'
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Use Word Walls and Charts
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Word walls or charts can prove to be invaluable when teaching a child about rhyming. Bright, colorful and interactive, rhyming word walls should focus on groups of rhyming words. Include a mix of different types of rhyming words such as words with the same ending sound, but spelled differently (cry/eye/lie) as well as words with endings spelled the same (know/show/snow.) Have children come up with new words to add to the wall or chart daily. Colored index cards with velcro or double-sided tape will allow the children to move words around the wall for easier grouping.
Develop Reward Systems
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Children love being rewarded for learning something new. Develop a system of rewarding children for their progress. This can be as simple as a special trip to the playground to more cumulative rewards for continued progress. For instance, whenever a child correctly groups a set of rhyming words on a word wall, place a star for her on a chart. After a predetermined number of stars, she should then be rewarded with a small treat for a job well done.
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