Find the Rhyming Words
Rhyming game is useful for learning spelling. This activity helps children to understand the patterns of spelling in English. This activity also improves vocabulary skills. This is also a test on auditory processing.
What are rhyming words? Rhyming words are group of words that have common ending.
Examples: mad and dad; ink and think; to and two. Rhyming words help you to understand the sounds made by letters in a word. A good understanding of sounds made by letters is necessary to learn spelling.
A basic step in understanding spelling of words in English is to have an idea of the sounds in English. Though there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, these make 44 sounds. The smallest unit of sound is called a phoneme. The list of 44 phonemes is available in the net. A number of videos, available in the internet, explain the sounds of English. Search the net: 44 sounds of English.
Spelling can be taught using rhyming words. There are 37 common word families in English. Search the net to know more about the word families.
How are the rhyming words arranged in this activity?
There are four levels. In the first level the user has to find words rhyming with two-letter words. In the second level, the challenge is to find words rhyming with three letter words. The third level uses four letter words. The final level has a mix of three-letter, four-letter and five letter words.
The words in these exercises are carefully chosen. A struggling speller would require more exercises to practise. Parents can make more exercises using common words or words in the text books of children.
The exercises in this activity help parents to spot the areas of difficulties of their child. Note how the child tackles the exercises. Find out the word patterns which pose problems for the child. The child can do frequent revision. Parents can use the words used in this activity as reading and writing exercises. These words can be used for dictation as well. Children may be encouraged to write sentences with these words.
Tips for you, parents:
- Does your child struggle with spelling?
This is a good activity to improve the ability to spell words. Make the child read aloud the words used in this game. Difficulty in reading causes difficulty in spelling. The first step is to get a good idea of your child’s ability to read. If the child has problems in reading, take remedial action. Get the list of 44 phonemes (basic sounds) of English and make the child aware of these sounds. How letters in the alphabet combine to form sounds may be taught.
- Use these words for dictation
For children struggling with spelling, dictation is a good remedy. The rhyming words are good for improving spelling. There are plenty of websites which make available lists of rhyming words. These can be used for dictation.
Care should be taken while choosing the words for dictation. Find out words which your child can spell correctly. If you are planning to dictate ten words to your child, include at least six words which she/he spells correctly. Your child would be in a better frame of mind to learn when she/he gets most of the words right. Download from the net suitable picture dictionaries. Search the net for rhyming words.
Don’t rush to teach new words. Give plenty of revision.Slow and steady wins the race!Practice pays.
- Improve sentence formation skills
Rhyming words can be used to improve sentence formation skills. Make the child write sentences using the rhyming words. This would be a good revision. Some rhyming words have different spellings but the same pronunciation. Example: steal and steel; meet and meat; write and right; no and know; Writing sentences using these words can be a good reinforcement.
Make the child write fifteen sentences every day. Sentence writing is good to correct many mistakes the child may be making- such as not starting the sentence with a capital letter, omission of punctuation marks like full stop, comma, and question mark. Issues in grammar can also be sorted out. Sentence writing helps to develop the ability to write different types of sentences. It also helps the child to express ideas in an organized manner. It also improves the writing skills. The imagination of the child gets a boost.
Dictate simple sentences to your child on a regular basis. Search the net for sentences for dictation.
- Improving memory and recall skills
Find out how good is your child’s memory. Does she/he have difficulty in recalling what was just learnt? Is she/he good at following oral instructions? There are children who have very poor short-term memory. They are not able to recall what they had learnt even after few minutes. The words included in this activity can be used to improve memory and recall skills.Because of poor short-term memory, they are not able to remember the oral instructions given to them.
Show a list of ten words or show three sentences to the child. Allow her/ him two minutes (or less than that) to read the words/sentences. Ask her/him to write the words or sentences. These need not be in the order in which the child had read the words/sentences. It is enough the material read are recalled and written. Record your child’s progress. You are likely to see good improvement in your child’s recall ability.Ignore the spelling mistakes made by your child because in this activity, you are emphasizing the quality of recall.
- Grid exercises to improve spelling and concentration
Grids of rhyming words can be made and the child has to cancel the rhyming pairs. The grids can be of different sizes. These can double up as concentration exercises. The grids can be of various sizes. It would be useful to put a time limit to do the activity so that there is some pressure on the child.
Examples
pen
box
fit
mug
met
bag
mad
sun
fed
sit
son
beg
leg
sat
sag
set
sad
not
bed
mat
In the above example, there are four words which have no matching pair- mug, box, not, pen.
The size of the grid can be varied and the length of words can be changed. See the example below.
rain
bone
hand
brown
bike
belt
nine
thigh
lack
how
gown
four
brain
like
great
no
cow
stay
fine
for
crack
ate
know
think
felt
rough
band
salt
alone
high
There are four words which don’t have matching pair- salt, rough, think, and stay.
- Ask the child to set questions to you!
One way of mastering an activity is to prepare questions to test others. Ask the child to test you. It would be a good idea to intentionally make one or two mistakes. Your child would be happy to see you making few mistakes! It would give your child great pleasure to correct your answers!
The related activity in this website is Confusing words.
- Search the internet for rhyming words, words by length, words with consonant blends etc. You can also search for sentence examples on the net. Also search for word lists for fluency in reading and word families.
- Useful books
Spelling Success – Graded Activities that Target Problems in Spelling Peter Clutterbuck Levels 1 to 5. (Published by Scholastic India.)
