Little Miss Muffet would be glad to know that her legend lives on. We all grew up reading, singing, and memorizing a variety of nursery rhymes, but would you know that children are still expected to know nursery rhymes? Yep…it is a GLE (Grade Level Expectation) for pre-k and k kiddos. There are a few reasons behind this seemingly dated benchmark. 1) Children are expected to be able to recognize familiar songs and rhymes for extended learning in classrooms, 2) Children are expected to utilize their memory, 3) Hearing and making up rhymes is a reading indicator!
I understand if you tuned me out for the first two reasons but did you hear what I said? Yes, rhyming is a tier on the reading ladder. If a child can hear and make up rhymes then that means that they can manipulate sounds in words, and manipulating sounds is a big chunk of what reading consists of in early readers. Rhyming is a definite pre-reading activity. 🙂
So, go crazy around your house speaking in rhyme: “Are you ready Freddy?” “See you later gator!” “After a while, crocodile” “That’s easy cheesy!”
Explain to your child that rhymes sound the same at the end of the word. So you can say two rhyming words in a sing-song way and it sounds almost the same, but if you say two non-rhyming words in a sing-song way then it just sounds awkward.
So, check out some mother goose books from the library and read some nursery rhymes to your kids and, of course, here is a hands-on activity.
Open the Rhyming activity attachment. Print it, see if your child can identify all the pictures (name them), and ask your child to color all the words that rhyme with “sat” red (-at word family) and then color all the other pictures whatever other color they would like.
Note: The first rhyming activity you do should focus on seeing if they can hear a rhyme or not. So, if you take out this sheet and say the names of everything on the paper, dont just ask them to find the rhyming words. Ask “Does cat rhyme with sat?” Then, “What about bear? Does bear rhyme with cat?” Say them right next to eat other and wait for a “yes” or “no” from your child. For example, “Cat, sat?” “Bear, Sat?” Give guidance for the activity. If your child says “yes” to cat, say “Good listening! Color it red because cat rhymes with sat!” If your child isn’t getting any right, put the activity sheet away and work on just making up silly rhymes and give this a lot of practice before continuing or moving on.
