Rhyming and reading

It is important for kids to learn to rhyme at an early age. It helps with everything related to reading and spelling with confidence. The traditional nursery rhymes, which are sometimes quite absurd, are really good for kids. If you don't like them, make up your own or find better ones. The point is, kids learn how to hear the text flow and hear the repetitive sounds in words even when the initial sound changes. Even a child with a learning disablily or speech impediment will soar if they are given a solid foundation to start with. Some of my kids with the most severe auditory processing difficulties excel when it comes to reading text because they know what a book should sound like. Many times they still have a hard time rhyming, but they can fill in the gaps or the words they can't sound out (the, what, who) because they know what kind of word should go there.

Here are 2 inspiring stories that illustrate why an actual book and story are important to reading developement:

1. A Braille story: A dedicated mother was trying to gain the tools to help her son. Her son was blind so she was trying to learn to read Braille. Of course, the initial books she got while her son was young were for her but she let him "read" them. One day when the family sat down to read a story her son was reaching out to find the book and feel the words! He was under 2. He understood where the story was coming from and wanted to read/feel along.

2. An ESL story: A principal and staff at a local school was determined to get their largely ESL, low-income population of elementary students to read. They held a parent meeting and asked all of the parents to read to or with their children every night. I believe the meeting was translated and the principal spoke. Weeks later one particular student was excelling and the teacher wanted to know how because there was nothing specifically that she had changed. They called the mother in for a conference. The mother thought she had done something wrong. Through a Spanish-English interpreter they discovered that the mother could not read. However, every night since the parent meeting she would sit down with her son and make up a story to a book (in Spanish). Now here son was an excellent reader (in English).

Yes, I realize that actual reading is not always taking place here but it is the "act" of reading that is important. It is the communication to your child that is important: here is a page with words on it, I will say them, and you will get something from it. Even the best TV show (and we love TV here) doesn't replace physically turning the pages of a book. Internet and games are great for supplementing. Books on tape are fabulous IF they are not replacing you. Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk on choosing between good, better and best. Different situations call for different things. A book on tape might be the best option for a long car ride, but good conversation might be the best idea too. Listening to a book on tape is better than watching TV, but reading to your child would be best.

But now back to rhyming...can't we all figure out words by associating them to words we already know? If I wrote the word "medge" you would know what that sounds like because you would think of the word "hedge". Have you ever read a rhyming book and had to go back because you mispronounced a word and found out what it was supposed to rhyme with? There's a line in a Madeline book that makes me crazy because nobody pronounces the word like the word they are trying to rhyme it with. It LOOKS like it should rhyme but it doesn't the way Americans pronounce it. It is great practice to let kids try to fill in the blank at the end of rhyming text. I would even accept made up words if they rhyme!

So my point is...just read! There is no right or wrong way to do. You have to just do it. You have to make your kids do it. I love to read a good book but sometimes I don't let my kids know that. Bill likes to read the sports section of the paper, and ESPN magazine. I should let him do that in front of the kids so they know he reads. Kyra didn't really like to read until I made her do it. The summer before third grade she had to read for an hour while I put Tasha down for a nap each day. Now, she can be reading 3 books at one time. She has read a couple of stories twice because she really liked them. Tasha likes to hear the same story over and over and over and over and over....again until she has it memorized. I'm pretty sure she can "read" about the first 10 pages of The Cat in the Hat to you. In fact, today she wanted to know why it was so dark out. I told her it might rain and that the sun was hiding behind the clouds. She said, "the sun is not sunny?" She is always talking about "down the wall in the hall". See, that's one kid that won't have problems with the "all" words. Thanks Seuss!