Fun with Rhyming Words

This week in Letterland we have been working on word families. We have looked at -at, -an, and -op. We discussed what makes a word rhyme and how to decide if words rhyme or not. We practiced rhyming words many different ways. Sometimes I would give the students a word and they would have to then generate a word that rhymes with that word. Sometimes we would just compare two words to see if they rhyme. The children learned to recognize these word families so that they don't have to sound them out every time they see them. Every time they see a word ending with -at they know what sound to make.

One fun game that we played was memory. We started out matching the words to pictures to practice reading the words. After a week of this, we made it a little harder by matching words that rhyme. The children turned over two cards and got to keep them if their words or pictures rhymed. It was a really fun way to practice rhyming as well as word and picture recognition.

Another fun game we played on Friday that is pictured is "Tractors, Trains, Airplanes, and Helicopters". We put all of the words that we have been practicing in our pocket chard and the children got to take turns coming up and pointing to words as the children read them. The fun part was that they got to choose how to do it. Tractors went slow and steady down the columns, Trains went at a good pace down the columns, Airplanes went really fast down the columns, and Helicopters went crazy all over the place, pointing to any word in any order. The children had a great time deciding how they wanted to do it and then pointing out words to their classmates.

All of these activities help increase fluency in reading, which is very important as we move on into First Grade!