As a reading specialist, one of my responsibilities is to
set-up a couple of parent nights each year.
I’m fortunate to work with two other amazing reading teachers, so I
don’t have to do this alone. Last
Thursday night we hosted a parent night for our kindergarten through second
grade parents, and I was responsible for the session on rhyming. We made finger puppets to go with some of our
favorite nursery rhymes and performed them.
The big kids I usually work with aren't as into puppets anymore, so I
had a great time. Check out this website
for the templates I used,
http://www.dltk-kids.com/.
Rhyming isn't just for fun; it’s a really important skill
for emergent readers. It teaches kids
phonological awareness, or the relationships between letters and sounds. When we read, we use a complex system of cues
to help our brains understand what our eyes are seeing. We think about the meaning of the story, the
syntax of the sentence, and the letter sounds in the words. I worked in a hearing impaired program for a
short time. My students there struggled with reading, because they couldn’t use
phonics to help them. Nursery rhymes,
songs, poems, and rhyming books are the best tools we have for teaching letter
sounds to our early readers. The best part is that kids enjoy rhymes and rhyming books.
I found an excellent rhyming, lift the flap book the other
day called
Do Crocs Kiss? by
Salina
Yoon. She also has a similar book called
Do Cows Meow? As an added bonus they both also teach
animal sounds. Some other good ones
include the
Llama, Llama books and the
Sheep in a Jeep series, as
well as,
Giraffes Can’t Dance and
Ain’t Gonna Paint No More. I should point out that my niece recently
lost the right to read the last book, because she was painting herself with
markers. It’s still a great rhyming
book. On Monday, one of my students was reading
Each,
Peach, Pear, Plum by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. It’s a classic, but I’d
forgotten how good it is. It’s a
rhyming, I spy book with a nursery rhyme theme.
Forget “Hooked on Phonics,” just sing and read Dr. Suess and Mother
Goose.
Great Rhyming Books
Do Crocs Kiss by Salina
Yoon
Do Cows Meow by Salina
Yoon
Llama, Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney
Llama, Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney
Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw
Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae
Ain’t Gonna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont
Each, Peach, Pear, Plum
by Janet and Allen Ahlberg
Hop on Pop by Dr. Suess
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Suess
Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow
Any Anthology of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes
As a reading specialist, one of my responsibilities is to
set-up a couple of parent nights each year.
I’m fortunate to work with two other amazing reading teachers, so I
don’t have to do this alone. Last
Thursday night we hosted a parent night for our kindergarten through second
grade parents, and I was responsible for the session on rhyming. We made finger puppets to go with some of our
favorite nursery rhymes and performed them.
The big kids I usually work with aren't as into puppets anymore, so I
had a great time. Check out this website
for the templates I used, http://www.dltk-kids.com/. 