How children learn to rhyme.
1. Exposure to Rhymes
Children become familiar with rhymes through lots of exposure. This can be through songs, nursery rhymes, rhyming games and activities, rhyming books, and/or everyday spoken language. These are building the blocks to rhyming success and set your child up to become proficent rhymers (and readers)!
2. Recognising Rhymes
At this stage, children are beginning to notice a difference between words that rhyme and words that don’t rhyme. It is likely this will be oral recognition and it’s a great time to celebrate this big accomplishment! Read rhyming books together and encourage the child to find the rhymes.
3. Producing Rhymes
In this third and last stage, children have officially mastered how rhyming works! Children are able to recognize rhyming words AND produce rhyming words too. Once simple rhymes feel successful, begin adding in words with more complex letter combinations as well. Blends and digraphs are a great start.