Because we already know how to read and most of us don’t really remember much about how we got here, we often don’t realize that preschool age children tend to hear words as a single sound. Not consciously realizing that words can be comprised of beginning, middle and end sounds.Being able to distinguish different sounds within a word is the basis of the phonics approach to teaching reading.Being able to distinguish different sounds within a word is the basis of the phonics approach to teaching reading. Children who have no experience with rhyming and letter-sound correspondence before kindergarten are slower to learn to read in first grade.
Rhyming teaches children to hear ending sounds in words, which can easily be done by exposure to common nursery rhymes, e.g. ‘Jack and Jill went up the hill’. Many children’s books, such as ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See’ and ‘Goodnight Moon’ incorporate this skill as well. Once they catch on to distinguishing the ending sounds, it doesn’t go away.
The following activity teaches children to recognize similarities in ending sounds. There are 16 sets of 3 pictures of objects. For each set, say aloud the three objects and then ask your child to point to the picture of each when you say it aloud a second time.
The first set is a ‘bear’, a ‘pear’ and a ‘sock’. Ask them to point to (or circle if you have printed the pages) the two pictures that sound alike.
You can also ask if they know another word that sounds similar (e.g, they might say ‘tear’, but might also say ‘clock’ if they are aware of the one that doesn’t rhyme with the other two). Asking them to point to or circle the two pictures that rhyme reinforces what they have learned because they will be rehearsing it as they do it.
