Fun Ways to Teach Rhyming Words (Kindergarten)

S.,

I did this with my daughter just for fun, and it took about quite awhile, but she got it. I think the most important thing was just to let her make up words instead of wracking her brain for words that actually rhymed. For as long as she could pay attention (maybe 3 minutes) a couple times a day, I would say a word, and she would try it rhyme it. If she did it, even it was a made-up word (e.g., baby - laby). I would give big praise. If not, I'd say, try again!

My home childcare has had the luxury of monthly visits form the Readmobile for over 2 years (the program is being cut due to Budget cuts after this month..they park the bus..we are so sad!)

One of the literacy songs we learned and LOVE from one of these visits is our rhyming song....we use it all the time..simple tune...and I have printed and found all sorts of things to laminate or just add stick-em stuff to the back (for flannelboard use...like buttons,etc) and toher things we just have in a rhyming bucket and the children can play on their own if they wish.

Heres the tune....with an example of simple rhyming words, as most of my children are very young preschoolers age 2-4.

HAT...CAT...these words rhyme
HAT...CAT....these words rhyme
HAT...CAT...these words rhyme
So rhyme along with me!

we find all sorts of simple words and go from there....sometimes when we take a walk the children will find things that rhyme and bust out in the song...I am so proud when that happens! I also do not discourage the nonsense words, as they are still rhyming.....

bed/red
hat/cat/bat/rat/sat/mat
duck/truck/stuck
shoe/blue
hand/sand
frog/log
dad/sad
brother/mother

you get the idea!

Good luck!

Hi S.,
Do you have any learning stores around your area. We have quite a few in the TC area. They are such a fun to shop, and I could literally spend 1-2 hours every time I go. The employees are very helpful and knowledgeable and really know their stuff. I'm sure they can point you in the right direction.

Hello,
I'm an elementary reading teacher and one thing we do all the time is read rhyming books and just talk about/pick out the word that rhyme. Some of my favorites is "Is your Mama a Lama" by Debroah Guarino the Five Little Monkey series by Eileen Christelow, and Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney.(You can find these in libraries)
There are many games you can play. For instance memory (you can find pictures that rhyme on clip art in Microsoft word if you don't want to go out and buy any) and matching rhyming puzzle pieces is also one of my students favorites. We even still play the old name game! Many of the activities we do are very game like and fun so don't feel pressured to have to do drill and skill activities. Constant exposure and your home support will help tremendously. Good Luck!

Search online for something like "kindergarten rhyming games" and you will find many sites with nice simple educational (and free!) games for kids. I'm not big on videos or video games, but I do occasionally allow my son to play these (with supervision, of course) and it's worked really well for things like telling time and practicing math. Another site we love is the Sesame Street website. You can search their site for videos and games pertaining to rhyming (or whatever subject you want).

My son likes to play a rhyming game when we're driving in the car. We take turns naming something we see and then a word that rhymes with it. A lot of times he will just make up a word, which results in a lot of giggles.

One other suggestion that I think is great for rhyming is singing. Lots of songs have words that rhyme, so maybe you can use that as a way of explaining about rhyming, but a fun thing to do is make up new words (about your son or whatever you're doing, it doesn't have to be poetry) and have him help you think of a word that rhymes. We have a lot of songs about our cat, bat, hat, sat, rat, mat...

Have fun!

My 3-yr-old daughter loves to rhyme, and I primarily credit this to the PBS show Super Why. Super Why does some rhyming generally instigated by the character Wonder Red. Perhaps he would enjoy this show and/or the games on the PBS website - there are some specifically targeted toward learning to rhyme.

There are some board games that teach rhyming. We just picked up the Green Eggs and Ham game at a thrift shop that she seems to enjoy.

There are also books that reinforce this. We have a pop-up book that shows the first letter being replaced to create rhyming words (ie rice, lice). This was a favorite for many an evening.

I think there's a lot out there, I'm sure you can find something your son will connect with. Good luck!

Just recently while we were driving my preschooler decided to make a "game" of rhyming words. We took turns picking the first word (i.e. "house", "car", "park", etc.) and then each of us would say words that rhyme. It was silly and fun for us to do while we were driving, but it also was nice to teach her about rhyme!

Hi -- I'm a former kindergarten and current pre-K teacher, so I have a few ideas. First of all, you should know that rhyming is part of the area of pre-reading skills known as phonemic awareness, so you can google that for ideas, or look at a teacher store for books about phonemic awareness.

One thing to do would be to read a lot of poems to him (silly ones like Jack Prelutsky's would be fun), recite nursery rhymes, and sing rhyming songs with him. Then play a game where you say a familiar poem/song and get the rhyming word wrong -- "Jack and Jill went up the mountain" -- so he says, "No, Mom! Went up the HILL!" and fixes your mistake.

Another would be to start rhyming some words and have him jump in with more, remembering that nonsense words are totally fine: pail, mail, bail, fail, gail, rail, sail, nail, zail, yail, lail, etc.

You could also write simple rhyming words in a column so that he can see that the ending letters are all the same, and then can make his own by substituting the first letter. (-an, pan, can, fan, etc.)

There are rhyming picture cards you can buy at a teacher store to use so that your son has to sort the pictures into pairs of words that rhyme (boat/coat, mug/bug).

Hope this helps!

make up songs with the words in it. kids always remember songs!!!!

There's a K-3 activity book called Rhyming Words and More Cut and Paste Activities. It has fun rhyming worksheets for children and other worksheets to help kids learn compound words, synonyms, antonyms and homophones/homonyms. The worksheets have fun titles like Do the Bunny Hop, I Scream, You Scream, and In the Doghouse.

http://kidssmartpublishing.com/rhymingwordsworksheets.htm

How about reading some Dr. Seuss books to him? Books like "The Cat in the Hat" and "Hop on Pop" are great ones for pre-readers/beginning readers. After you've read them a few times, maybe you could read sometimes leave off the rhyming word at the end of a sentence and have your child "fill in the blank." A nice thing about "Hop on Pop" is that the inside covers (at least, on the copy we own) has separate lists of the rhyming words from the book. Sometimes after we read the book, we go through those lists on the back cover (example: hop, pop, top).

My students love the worksheets by Kids Smart Publishing! Try Rhyming Words and More: Cut and Paste Activities (mykidssmart.com). A great way to teach kids to rhyme!

S. - we used to play a rhyming game with our children. Sometimes it would be in the car on a road trip or at the dinner table. Someone would start with a word and we had to go in turn and rhyme the word. The whole family was involved. Of course, my 6 year old son's favorite word to start with was "heart."

It was a way to get the whole family involved in this important skill.

Good luck

D.

My daughter had the same issue a year ago when she was in K. Rhyming words were the only "less than positive" comment on her report card. I had found a game at a teacher's store (The Learning Post) called I Spy a Mouse in the House Picture Rhymes. There are 3 ways to play this game. We played them all quite often and it was a lot of fun for both her and I. It seemed to work because she got a better comment on the next report card and finished K reading at an above grade level rank. I think the game helped her to "hear" the words rhyme and she finally figured out the sounds. We also just started naming rhyming words at the dinner table - the whole family got into this game. Good luck!

I bought my oldest a series when he was four, and that summer before kindergarten we took the books with to visit Grandma and Grandpa in South Carolina. We were only there for three weeks, but by the time we left he was reading on his own! He loved that he got a sticker everytime he finished a story correctly(stickers come with books), and could not wait to fill up the sticker chart in the back of the book. There is a website for the books: www.innovativekids.com They were called Now I'm Reading written by Nora Gaydos.
I lost most of the books over the years as our oldest is ten, but am going out to rebuy them for our just turned four year old.
An example of one book I have still has has 10 stories in it and it is Level 2 of the series. The first soty is Called APE DATE and it goes like this page1 says The Ape. Page two says The Gray Ape. Page three says The Gray Ape Makes a Cake. Page four says The Gray Ape Places the cake to Bake on a tray.

It goes on like that adding words to each page, but always starting with the same three ryhming words so that they learn by repitition. Plus, there are great parent pages that teach parents how to help their child. Hope this helps:)

I think the good old fashioned nursery rhymes and Dr Suess do a great job!
Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water.....
hickory dickory dock the mouse ran up the clock....
Hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle.....
You remember- Mother Goose!

i am an usborn books consultant and we have lots of good books with rhyming words! :D
www.usbornforthefuture.com is my website. "big pig on a dig" "fat cat on a mat" "fox on a box" "frog on a log" "goose on the loose" "hens pens" "mouse moves house" and many many others!
you could even have a show - even just an online one - to earn books for free! :D
good luck!

Reading books like Dr. Seuss are great ways. They are so silly that they keep my children entertained and giggling. The library should have a section with other books as well with rhyming.