Phonological Awareness

Home Activities: Rhyming

While driving in the car, walking, or while getting ready for bed have your child name something she/he sees.  Your job will be to think of a rhyming word for the word your child said.  For example, if your child says, "car", you might say "far".  If you get stuck, make up silly rhymes and have fun, like "pajamas and majamas".

Children learn to play with language and sounds through rhyme, rhythm, and songs.  Singing songs, reciting nursery rhymes, having fun with finger plays, and reading rhyming books will help your child become aware of the sounds used in spoken words.  Sing part of a familiar song and have your child fill in the missing rhyming word.  For example, you might say, "Little Miss Muffet sat on a ________".

Word Awareness

Point out important features in words for your child.  Talk about words that rhyme, words that start with the same sound, talk about long words like "tyrannosaurus" and short words like "hat", talk about many words on a page in a book and just a few words on a page in a book.  You may even want to count the number of words on a page or count the number of letters in a word.

Sound Blending

Have fun with your child playing a slow talking game.  This will give them skills in blending words together.  You can do this anywhere anytime even while you wash dishes!  You say a word slowly, "h-o-t-d-o-g (say each sound slowly, not the names of the letters).  Can your child guess the word you said?  Start with short words such as "c-a-n" and then move to longer words.  Try changing just one sound in a word and see if your child can hear the difference (like b-a-t and p-a-t).

Sound Segmenting

Your child will want a turn playing the "slow talking game".  By giving them a chance to say the sounds in a word s-l-o-w-l-y they are learning a new skill called sound segmenting.  Remind your child to say each sound in the word very slowly.  If your child forgets some sounds in the word, the game can become funny because you will guess a word based only on the sounds you heard.  If your child says 'b-oo-m" for the word broom, you would guess "boom".