Fun and Easy Ways to Teach Rhyming Words in Kindergarten

Teaching rhyming words to kindergarten or preschool students can be challenging, so today I’m sharing rhyming games and other phonological awareness activities to help students recognize rhymes and generate their own rhymes!

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The Phonological Awareness Umbrella

The term “phonological awareness skills” is an umbrella term that includes words within sentences, rhyming units in words, syllables within words, beginning and ending sounds within words, phonemes (or sounds) within words, features of individual sounds, such as mouth articulation. 

Phonemic awareness is under the umbrella of phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that a word is made up of separate sounds, called phonemes. Young children who have developed strong phonemic awareness skills can not only recognize the discrete sounds, but also pick out and manipulate those sounds.

Phonemic awareness is different from phonics. Phonics deals with learning the sound-spelling relationship, while phonemic awareness deals with the sounds in spoken words. Research shows us that practicing them at the same time is a great way to build those skills. 

Rhyming Difficulties

In my experience as a classroom and multilingual teacher, I’ve found that preschool or kindergarten students often struggle with rhyming. When students are learning the English language, they tend to focus on the beginning and middle of the word. The often forget to enunciate the ending of the word. Of course, this leads to a problem when you are trying to teach rhyme recognition. I teach a weekly Adult English class for my district and I find that rhyming can even be difficult for my advanced students. I often have to encourage them to pronounce the plural sound or other different endings. 

Holding up picture cards, I would ask if they could generate a rhyme. If I had a picture of a cat, some students might say, “dog” or “meow!” instead of coming up with a rhyming word on their own. Rhyming is such an important concept that falls under the phonological awareness umbrella. We can encourage our young learners with listening activities and some of the word activities I’m sharing with you today.

Teaching Rhyming Words to Kindergarten – Name Game

I have to start with one of the easiest ways to sneak in rhyming practice whether your students are in first grade, kindergarten, or preschool. When it’s time for students to line up, sometime I’ll announce that I’m going to call them by their rhyming name. Name rhymes are so fun and silly and students love them!

As an example, I might say, “When I call your rhyming name, please line up.” You could also say something similar but tell them to go to their seat or other instruction you want them to follow. Then I start to say the students’ names with a rhyming word. For example, I might say, “Kyler” and the class all giggle and say, “Tyler!”

I love the all of the students get involved because it is a good way for all of them to practice oral language skills. You can come up with real names or totally made-up words. There isn’t much that rhymes with my daughter’s name, Aniston, so I typically just add a consonant to the beginning of their names. I might say, “Baniston!” and the class laughs and says, “Aniston!” I’m confident that your students will love this fun activity as much as mine do.

Another name game is that song from when we were little. It was first made famous by Shirley Ellis in 1964 and was called “The Name Game.”

With my name it would go like this: 

Hilary, Hilary, bo-Bilary
Banana-fana fo-Filary
Fee-fi-mo-Milary
Hilary!

Do you remember that one? My students laugh and laugh when I sing their names like that!

Other Fun Games

Next, I’m sharing one of my favorite ways to practice rhyming skills. Have you tried my cup stacking challenges in your classroom? This is seriously one of the best things I’ve ever introduced to my students. It’s low-prep but full of learning fun. 

Students will start by looking at the pictures of objects on the card and then trying to find the matching cup to stack in that order. This is such a great game because it limits the amount of words they have to choose from and helps them thing about the way rhyming words end. 

I like to play this during our small groups time. The first time they have to try the game with me, but then I feel confident in them practicing this on their own. After they complete all of the 6 cup challenges, the next step is to try the 15 cup challenges. Your room is actually pretty quiet as they work away but this is truly so much fun for them! 

If you’re interested in trying these, you can grab the rhyming set, but I highly recommend the growing bundle of cup challenges. It includes CVC, CVCe, Blends, Opposites, Compound Words, Addition, and so much more!

Teaching Rhyming words to kindergarten Using Children’s Books

Of course, you can practice this skill in so many different ways. I love to grab a rhyming book. You will pause when you get to the second rhyming word and students try to guess the missing word. This is such an easy way to practice such an important skill.

Favorite Read Alouds

My personal favorites are books written by Julia Donaldson and Karma Wilson. Let me show you what that would look like with my favorite, Bear Snores On. 

I have recited Karma Wilson’s picture books so much while working in an elementary school that I know them by heart.”In a cave in the woods in his deep dark lair, through the long cold winter sleeps the great brown _.” You’ll pause here and wait for your children to shout out the word “bear!” You can continue this with any author. Of course, Dr. Seuss books would be great for this. Dr. Seuss is the king when it comes to silly rhymes, in my opinion. Simply pause when you get to the second rhyme and see if they can guess the next word.

What to Snag for your classroom

I would DEFINITELY recommend snagging all of the books by Karma Wilson that you can. She’s just such a great author! This set of 3 is a great place to start.

You’ve probably read The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson? Her rhyming is exquisite. I like to explain to my students that after reading The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom, Mrs. Statum went to Amazon and typed in “Julia Donaldson.” Then I ask why they think I did that. You can see the wheels turning in each child’s brain. One will eventually guess that you went there to find MORE books by this author because you liked the first one so much. 

Favorite Julia Donaldson Books

I really love Stickman and A Gold Star for Zog, but The Spiffiest Giant in Town is truly one of my favorites. Of course the rhymes are beautiful, but it includes the sweetest message about kindness and generosity. The kids giggle and giggle at different parts of it too. I’ll leave it for you to enjoy the rest!

You can grab a pack of 10 books by Julia Donaldson here and it’s quite the steal!

Teaching Rhyming Words to Kindergarten – Direct Instruction

How do you teach kids how to recognize new rhyming words or generate a new word to make rhyming pairs? I’ll continue to share some more rhyming activities, but you’ll need to make sure your students have a solid foundation when it comes to phonemic awareness. As we discussed earlier, children should be able to hear the different sounds in a word. With kindergarten, try simple CVC words, such as mop or sat. They should be able to identify the beginning sound and the ending sound. 

Moving your hands along with the phonemes is a fun way to practice rhyming. For example, kids might pretend to dribble three times while saying each phoneme. /m/ /a/ /d/ and then pretend to shoot the basketball into the hoop when they blend the sounds together and say, “mad!” You can use different body parts, such as tapping your head, shoulders, knees, and toes, as you blend 4 sound words. I hope you’re able to incorporate some of these phonemic awareness activities into your routine. Research tells us that you should work your way through the basic level of phonemic awareness all the way to phoneme manipulation. A simple definition of phoneme manipulation means that children can hear the separate parts of a word and replace a phoneme in it. For example, they could take the word “hip” and chance the /h/ to /d/ to make “dip”. 

Teaching Rhyming Words to Kindergarten – Classic Nursery Rhymes

Do you love traditional nursery rhymes as much as my students and I do? I like to do quick finger plays for the students. For instance, if we are retelling Hickory Dickory Dock, I will pretend that my hand is a little mouse running up my body, stopping on my head. When the clock strikes, use your hands to imitate that part. Of course, the mouse runs down the other side.

Today I’m sharing a free nursery rhyme recording sheet. I actually sent this one home during the pandemic to make sure parents had some ideas of what to work on with their kids. I gave a quick explanation of how to help students with sound recognition in words, but this little printable made for some great lesson plans for parents.

You can use this sheet to check off throughout the year. Think of hanging one near your circle time area or by your desk. When you have a few extra minutes in the day, practice them until your students are able to recite them all.

I have so many different activities to help you. I also have nursery rhymes (and fairy tales) available as digital Google Slides and Boom cards. Students are able to listen to the rhyme in an interactive way. After hearing the rhyme, they can move the characters around like puppets to practice retelling the poem. Then they are asked simple comprehension questions and even checking to see if they can find the rhyming match on some of these sets.

Teaching Rhyming Words to Kindergarten – Word Families 

Perhaps the simplest way to practice different words and rhyming is to work on word families. You probably have word family charts in your stash or you’ve probably created your own rhyming anchor chart. I like to pull out magnetic letters for this too. Sometimes we use them to spell children’s names, but we are often using them to spell nonsense words or CVC words. I will say, “Okay, everyone… it’s rhyme time!” The kids love that. 

You’ll often find word families in an emergent reader or on word cards. I created these paint chip word family cards that I just love! I created them in my early years of teaching and then made new ones a couple of years ago to demonstrate how to make these. Simply ask a home improvement store if they have any extra or mind you taking some for your classroom. My local Home Depot was more than happy for me to choose some to use. To find out more about this simple project, be sure to watch the reel and follow me on instagram.

Teaching Rhyming Words to Kindergarten – File Folder Retelling

Have you ever tried using a file folder game with students? I actually love using them to retell a story or in this case a favorite rhyme.

My nursery rhyme retelling folders are some of my favorites. You can work on these in small groups but soon your students can use them for independent practice and language development. This is the best way to practice short poems. It’s a good idea to add the folder games to a tub that students have access to as you learn each one. I will often hear all of my kids, even struggling students absolutely delighted to pull out the retelling folders to practice the poems or song lyrics. Working with these smaller pieces are also great to help children develop those fine motor skills. 
 

YouTube videos

Jack Hartmann is an absolute legend on YouTube! We’ve had so much fun with his videos over the years. You’ll find videos to practice each stage of rhyme recognition to really help children’s development. I love when he shows a rhyming picture and the kids have to try to guess what the next rhyme might be. 

Looking for more? You’ll want to check out my fairy tale resources and Science of Reading aligned centers! You can also head here to this blog post for more engaging ideas about open and closed syllables!