One of the most basic phonological awareness skills is learning how to rhyme. Students learn to hear the larger chunk of a word—in this case, rimes (the vowel in the word and all subsequent consonants)—before they learn to isolate individual phonemes. This page includes intervention strategies that you can use to develop your student's understanding of rhyming. As you read, consider which of these interventions best align with your student's strengths and needs in the whole learner domains.
The most basic rhyming intervention is to teach the student to determine whether or not two words rhyme. These activities require the student to listen to two words and identify whether they sound the same at the end.
Explicit Instruction
If you are intervening to support your students' ability to determine whether or not two words rhyme, you should start by explicitly teaching the skill. This sounds like:
Activity A: Rhyme or No Rhyme?
Show two pictures. Ask students to name each picture, and then ask students if the pictures rhyme. "This is a _________. This is a __________." "Do cat and rat rhyme?” "Why?" or "Why not?"
Rhyme or No Rhyme? in Action
Watch this clip to see how to execute Rhyme or No Rhyme? Notice how the teacher asks questions to check the student's understanding.
Give students several pictures to look at. Have the students identify which pictures rhyme. "This is a ________, _________, _________. Which of these rhymes with bee? [Student points to picture and says 'Tree.'] How do you know?"
Which Pictures Rhyme? in Action
Watch this clip to see how to execute Which Pictures Rhyme? Notice how the teacher increases the rigor of the activity mid-way through the clip.
Give students several pictures to look at. Have the students sort pictures into groups that align to target sounds. "Look at the cards, make two piles: words that rhyme with cat and words that rhyme with mop."
Reading Rockets. (2022, March 23). Rhyming games: Classroom strategy. Classroom Strategies for Rhyming . Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/rhyming_games
Once your student can identify rhyming words in isolation, you might move on to having her identify rhyming words in context. This is a more difficult skill because the student listens to a larger set of words and then identifies rhyming words within that set.
Explicit Instruction
Again, you will want to explicitly teach this skill. This sounds like:
Activity D: Find the Rhyme
Choose a rhyming book or a poem to read aloud to students. Ask students to respond when they hear a rhyme within the text or when they hear a word that rhymes with a target sound. "Repeat each sentence and touch each cube as you read the words. Then, point out which two words rhyme."
Find the Rhyme in Action
Watch this clip to see how to execute Find the Rhyme. Notice how the teacher keeps the focus on hearing the rhyme by representing each word with a cube rather than with a word card.
EEC. (n.d.). Having fun with phonemic awareness. Resources for Early Learning. Retrieved from http://resourcesforearlylearning.org/educators/module/20/28/136/
After a student has learned to identify pairs of words that rhyme, she is ready to start to generate her own rhyming words. This is a more complex skill because it requires that a student hear a word, isolate it's rime, and then retrieve a word with the same rime from her long-term memory.
Explicit Instruction
If you are intervening to support your students' ability to generate rhyming words, you should start by explicitly teaching the skill. This sounds like:
Activity E: Produce Rhyming Words
The following intervention strategy was sourced from Henry, M. (2010). Unlocking literacy: Effective decoding & spelling instruction (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD.: P.H. Brookes. The teacher says two or three words that rhyme and asks for additional rhyming words. For example, “Here are some rhyming words: pat, fat, hat. Can you tell me some other words that rhyme with these three words?” [fat, mat, cat, flat, slat, etc.]
Produce Rhyming Words in Action
Watch this clip to see how to execute Produce Rhyming Words. Notice how the teacher increases the rigor of this activity mid-way through the clip.
Give students a word orally. Ask students to produce as many words that rhyme with the original word within a specified time limit. For this activity, students can produce real words or pseudowords (or nonsense words) (e.g., pit, dit). “What other words can you think of that rhyme with sit? Let’s see how many you can think of in the next 30 seconds.”
Henry, M. (2010). Unlocking literacy: Effective decoding & spelling instruction (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD.: P.H. Brookes.
Suortti, O., & Lipponen, L. (2016). Phonological awareness and emerging reading skills of two- to five-year-old children. Early Child Development and Care, 186(11), 1703-1721. https://www-tandfonline-com.library.relay.edu/doi/full/10.1080/03004430.2015.1126832
Think about the following scenario, which takes place after a teacher has explicitly taught a lesson about how to generate rhyming words:
Teacher: "What word rhymes with at?"
Student: "Car."
In such a case, what might you do?
Feedback During the Lesson
When you are planning your lessons, you should anticipate that your student will make errors throughout the activity. Here are a series of prompts that you can use to respond to errors. Keep in mind that all students are different, and some students might respond better to different types of feedback than others.
| Level of Support | Description of Scaffold | Script |
|---|---|---|
| Smallest scaffold | Try again! Allows student multiple opportunities to practice new skill. Ask the student to try the same rhyme again and remind them of the task. | "Let's see if you can try a different word that rhymes with at. Pay close attention to the ending sound." |
| Medium scaffold | Provide resources. Allows the student to use resources to figure out the answer (including helpful supports such as a visual cue, a prompt, or an alternate word).
|
"Car, let's check.../at/ /car/. That word sounds different at the end. I'll try one... /cat/ /at/. Those words sound the same at the end. Can you think another word that has the same ending sound as at?" |
| Highest scaffold | Model, Lead, Test, Retest. Model for the student using this gradual release correction procedure adopted from Carnine, D.W., Silbert, J., Kame'enui, E. J. & Tarver, S. G. (2004). Direct instruction reading (4th Ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. | 1. Teacher says the correct answer."Mat." 2. Teacher models: "My turn. Rhymes with at." (Signal.) "Mat." 3. Teacher leads: "Let's do it together. Rhymes with at" (Signal.)"Mat." (Teacher responds with the students.) 4. Teacher tests: "Your turn. Rhymes with at. (Signal.) Mat." |
If your student struggles to meet your objective, there are various techniques that you might try to adjust the activity to your student's needs.
| Activity | Description of strategy | Script |
|---|---|---|
| Matching rhyming words | Teach. Explicitly teach her to isolate the rime in a single word first | "...to find the ending sound of back, break off the beginning sound /b/ and then say the rime /ack/..." |
| Repeat! Teach her to repeat the rime she's trying to match three times (so that it's in her ear) before moving on to the next word | "I'm going to say this three times to help me remember - /ack/ /ack/ /ack/..." | |
| Visual Cues. Help her hold the words in her mind by giving her a visual for each of the words you're working with. Use pictures, not words as visual cues, because pictures reinforce that notion that the student should be thinking about the sounds at the end of the word (the rime), rather than the letters. If the student doesn't recognize the image, tell her the names. | "Think about this picture - name it - that's right, 'back.' What rhymes with back? | |
| Identifying rhyming words in context | Provide choices. Give the student choices about words that rhyme | "Does ___ rhyme with ____? How about ____ and ______?" |
| Generating rhyming words | A to Z. Go through the letters of the alphabet together; list a word for each letter (even if it's a nonsense word) | "Ok, let's make words that rhyme with back. We'll start with the letter A to rhyme words with back. ack, back, cack, dack...." |