Do you play with language in your everyday conversations with your children? Do you say things like, “It’s time for bed, Ned!” or, “Off the table, Mabel!” regularly? (That was one of my mother’s favorites. I guess we kids must have been table-climbers.) Learning to recognize and create rhyme is a hugely important early literacy skill. It develops phonological awareness (the ability to recognize and manipulate parts of words), which is a foundational reading skill. Besides, rhyming is fun! You should be reading lots of rhyming picture books with your children to make rhyme part of their daily life.
Rhyming is So Easy, a video from educator/entertainer Freddy Shoehorn aka Sockhead Smith, is a great place to start teaching your little one to rhyme. Very often, children just learning to rhyme get stuck on word association. If you ask them what rhymes with red, for example, they might say strawberry. Since most song lyrics rhyme, adding a little tune automatically preps the ear to hear a rhyme. If you listen to Rhyming is So Easy once, you can make it your own and use it to teach your child to rhyme. It really is that easy!
Make it your mission to include rhyme in your everyday language. Are you ready, Freddy? Get rhyming!
