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.
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. Aim to make shared enjoyment of books the beginning of a
lifetime habit!
Check out our top tips for developing rhyming skills and some great Letterland resources that can help, then head over to our website to grab your new Letterland goodies!
Top Tips
Read through the activities together. Talk about the pictures and give help as needed. Also give plenty of praise. This builds confidence - an important part of all learning.
Encourage your child to listen carefully. In order to rhyme, your child will need to pay attention to the final sound in words. This is a valuable step towards successful reading.
Always say the sounds that letters make, not their names (e.g. b is not ‘bee’; it is the little ‘b…’ sound you make when you start to say ‘Bouncy Ben’). The correct sound is right at the start of each Letterlander’s character name.
If your child has enjoyed a particular page, think of ways in which you can extend the activity. For example, on page 12, you could see how many other words you can find that end in ‘ap’, ‘en’ or ‘op’.
Try making up your own rhymes together. Be creative - you could make up some really silly rhymes as part of the fun.
Encourage your child to draw lines or tick boxes carefully, to help develop fine motor skills.
Keep it short, and stop before your child tires. If he or she just wants to scribble, provide crayons and plain paper and encourage their efforts. Save the activities in this book for later. At a later stage your child may well find them a lot easier.
And don’t worry if your child finds a particular activity difficult. All children progress
at different rates. Leave the activity for now and come back to it later. Your child may
well find it a lot easier on another occasion.
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The Letterland Alphabet of Rhymes is a delightful collection of poems featuring the much-loved Letterland characters. Twenty-six original rhymes will take children on a magical tour of Letterland while teaching them valuable literacy concepts such as rhyme, rhythm and alliteration (a series of words starting with the same sound).
This activity book encourages children to take the vital first steps on the road to reading. They will begin to build words, then identify words that rhyme and anticipate word endings. There's plenty of fun to be had drawing and colouring pictures too - brilliant for developing pencil control!
This lively activity book is full of activities to encourage children to identify words that rhyme and anticipate word endings - vital steps on the road to reading. Included is an Alphabet of Poems - a wonderful resource. Children will love the rhymes because they can play with language and children always love to play!
We hope you found this article useful. If you'd like to use Letterland to help teach your little learners rhyming skills, head over the our website to grab all these brilliant resources.
Want to read more? Check out our article on using Letterland to teach alphabet sounds and shapes, making words or handwriting practice.