Read and Rhyme

Read and Rhyme challenges students to pronounce target words as well as coming up with words that rhyme. This exercise is a great way to build an ever increasing vocabulary through sound association. You'll need a deck of cards that contains word recognition word learned so far, and a small sack. The goal of the activity is given a written regular word, the student can say the word with automaticity, as well as deepening students' knowledge of words that rhyme.

Aim: Building pronunciation skills and building vocabulary through the use of rhymes.

Activity: Read and Rhyme - students pronounce target words and improve knowledge of words that rhyme

Level: Children

Outline:

• Place all word recognition words in a small sack.
• Have students sit in a circle.
• Read the bolded texts:
• Today we are going to play Read and Rhyme. In a moment, we are going to pass around this sack (hold up sack filled with word-recognition words). When the sack gets to you, pull out one card, sound out the word on your card silently, and then read the word aloud quickly while holding up your card so that everyone can see it. Model this using a word in the sack.
• Once you have read your word, the rest of us will indicate if you’ve read the word correctly. If we think you read the word correctly, we will touch our noses. If we think you made a mistake, we will keep our hands in our laps.
• If you read the word correctly, you must name another word that rhymes with your word in order to keep the card you drew. For example, if you read the word rat correctly, you must state a word that rhymes with rat, such as cat, in order to keep the card. If you can’t think of a word that rhymes with rat, I will call on someone else to come up with a rhyming word. If that person is correct, she gets to keep the card. If the second student can’t come up with a rhyming word (real or nonsense), call on other students until someone is able to come up with a rhyming word.
• Now, if you did not read the word you pulled out of the sack correctly, hand the card to the person to your left, so that he gets a chance to read the word and name a rhyming word.
• The winner of the game is the person with the most word cards once the sack is empty.
• Regardless of whether a student gets to keep her card or gives it to someone else, make sure that once a student’s turn is over, she always passes the sack to the student sitting to her left, so that everyone gets a chance to play.

This activity has been adapted for ESL classes from a lesson at Free Reading Net under the Creative Commons license Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.