My Second Rhyming Activity Book

Age 4+

Learn to read and rhyme

About this book Children enjoy rhymes because rhymes play with language and children love all forms of play.

Understanding how rhymes work is an important skill that will give your child a happy start in reading and spelling simple words. A child who can read and spell ‘cat’ will be able to read and spell ‘hat’, ‘mat’ and so on. So, as children enjoy these rhyming activities, they will also be taking an essential step towards successful reading.

Some suggestions to help you get the most from this book: •

Choose a time to sit together when there is nothing your child would rather be doing.

Read through the activities. Talk about the pictures and give help as needed. Also give plenty of praise. This builds confidence - an important part of all learning.

After the rhyming activities on pages 1-13, there is a poem for every letter of the alphabet.

•

•

•

• •

Let your child choose any poem. Read it aloud up to the last word. Then help your child to choose the best of the four listed words to complete the final sentence. The word needs to both rhyme and make sense. Write it in the blank space.

Next reread the poem slowly 2 or 3 more times, enjoying the rhythm and pointing to the words while you both say them together. You could do this ‘echo reading’ one or two more times. Give praise and look impressed each time your child joins in.

Do the same with other poems. Come back to the first ones again too. Young children thrive on repetition and the growing familiarity of the rhyming sentences as they come closer and closer to being able to read them independently.

Save further poems for other occasions, so you child knows your rhyme times together will be short, frequent and fun. Give him or her turns at pointing to the words.

When you think your child has learned to say a whole poem from memory while pointing, you could ask him or her to try it alone. This time you just listen. Give lots of praise for ‘reading’ part of, or even the whole poem without your help.

Remember, your long term plan is for your child to love reading. That begins with feeling cosy and relaxed and letting the words in the poems and books become a real pleasure to share.

Meanwhile your child will have been learning a lot about listening carefully, about how words work, how sentences go from left to right, what makes words rhyme, what words make sense in one place but nonsense in another, and will have enjoyed laughing with you at the nonsense that sometimes results when you try out a wrong word to the end of a poem before you find the right rhyming one. That child is also well on the way to loving reading!

Make your own!

Write in the first letter to make your own rhyming word.

Draw a picture of your word. The Letterlanders will help you.

van

hat

Rhy me

frog

_____

an

_____

_____

at

og

Explain that words that sound the same at the end are words that rhyme.

1

Rhyming pairs

2

List en

Join the words to the pictures to form rhyming pairs.

red

ball

small

cat

fat

bed

As you read the words together, encourage your child to listen to the way they sound alike at the end. Explain that this makes them into rhyming words.

Draw the rhymes Draw a picture of…

…a fox in a box.

Volu me

…a cat on a mat.

Say the sentences together several times. Have some fun and make a game of saying the rhyming words louder than the rest of the sentence.

3

Cross it out

4

Poin t

Cross out the words that do not rhyme.

house

mouse

cake

locket

jelly

rocket

nest

hat

rat

clock

sock

cow

Help strengthen the sound/symbol link by pointing to each word as you read them to your child. Help with the discovery that, except for the first letter or two, the rhyming words on this page both sound and look similar.

Read the poems and try to fill in the missing rhymng word at the end of each one.

Annie Apple Annie Apple is in her tree, How many animals can she see?

Five pink piglets in their pen, and

ten

axe

five white lambs, that makes ___!

fun

ant

Mum

Mike

kite

hike

Bouncy Ben Bouncy Ben is riding on his bright, blue bike.

He’s going up a mountain

14

Poin t

to visit Munching ____!

It’s important to try and help your child realise that every spoken word can be written down and ‘kept’ on a page. This is why pointing to each word is useful.

Clever Cat Clever Cat is playing.

She’s dressed up as a clown.

She jumps into her car,

moon

hill

and drives around the ____!

town

cows

door

drum

desk

pad

Dippy Duck Here is the band from Letterland.

Down the road they come.

Look! Dippy Duck is at the front banging on her ____!

Eddy Elephant Eddy loves to exercise.

He likes to stand on his head.

But sometimes he prefers to do

Enjo y

eleven push-ups _______!

shed in town down instead

Research has shown that learning to love reading is one of the most important factors in success at school. So have a good time reading together!

15

Clever Cat & Harry Hat Man Sometimes Clever Cat and Harry Hat Man do not make their usual sounds in words. This happens when Clever Cat sits next to the Hat Man and his hairy hat makes her nose tickle. Then all you can hear is her quietly sneezing, ‘ch...’!

Rhyme Clever Cat and Harry Hat Man have their own rhyme.

The Cat belongs to the Hat Man. He lets her go where she pleases.

But when she sits down beside him, she almost always sneezes!

“Ch! ch! ch!”

Act

Have fun acting out the ‘ch story’ together. Make sure the sneeze sounds like ‘ch’ and not ‘ah-choo’!

There are many more clever rhymes to discover and also sing on the Letterland Blends & Digraphs CD.

24