How important is rhyming in all honesty?

[shannatheshedevil]

My son and I have been working our way through 100EZ for a couple of weeks now. After a painful start, it's all going much, much better. He's getting the reading without much issue, in fact, it's going great. What he does NOT get is rhyming. At all. I cannot make him understand how it works, what it is, nothing. It's just not happening. Do I need to restart the program to make him get rhyming or do we just continue on? Help!

[Soror]

I am not an expert by any means but my son didn't start rhyming until 5.5. I read after the fact that not rhyming by the age of 4.5 is an indicator for dyslexia- not diagnostic mind you but could be an indicator. I am still not sure with my son if that is the case, we just take it one day at a time.

[Dmmetler]

Can he recite nursery rhymes? Sing songs?

 

The research I know of on rhyming mostly deals with rhyming in context, and indicates that children who have a lot of familiarity with rhyming, rhythmic texts have an easier time learning to read, and generally end up reading at least on grade level by age 8 or so.

 

Changing letters to create rhyming words that are actually words is listed as a 1st grade skill in my state. I know many kids who can do it before that point, but I wouldn't stress about a 4 yr old who hadn't quite gotten it yet.

[justasque]

Personally, I'd take the time to play with rhyming - not just how it relates to spelling, but hearing the different parts of the words and understanding "front sounds different, back sounds same". It's a pretty basic skill, to be able to break down the sounds in a word, and without it you're not going to get very far. There are all kinds of games you can play to help with this.

[texasmama]

The "rhyming" in this program deals with blending more than actual rhyming skills. My daughter doesn't really understand the point of the 100 EZ lessons "rhyming", either, and I will skip it at times. I also skip the writing exercises. Feel free to skip it if it doesnt' work for your son, I say.:001_smile:

[Shelly in the Country]

My firstborn did not get rhyming at first either. I dumped 100 EZ lessons for that reason primarily. It was torture! I switched her over to VP Phonics Museum and she was reading at age 4. I'd just skip the portions of the text with the rhyming in it. I had to ditch the entire program with her because she'd cry when I pulled out the book.

[stripe]

I don't think it's been shown to be an important skill in learning how to read. It could be valuable for other reasons (including, say, one's future as a poet, or whatever), but I take it that's not your concern. If I recall, Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It: A Scientific Revolution in Reading by Diane McGuinness discusses this.

[sbgrace]

I don't think it's been shown to be an important skill in learning how to read. It could be valuable for other reasons (including, say, one's future as a poet, or whatever), but I take it that's not your concern. If I recall, Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It: A Scientific Revolution in Reading by Diane McGuinness discusses this.

 

This. Research doesn't support the importance of rhyming even in the context of phonemic awareness priorities. It might be a clue (at a certain point) that there is an issue that's going to make reading more difficult but it's not at all necessary to read. One of my son's couldn't rhyme at six despite lots and lots of working on it and exposure. He also lacked other, more important, areas of phonemic awareness. He's learning to read. And as he really started to make progress in that area the phonemic awareness (including rhyming) is coming with it. Someone shared research that supported that phonemic awareness develops in some kids as decoding progresses. The conclusion I took was the you teach solid phonetic decoding as you're doing instead of focusing on phonemic awareness prior to learning.

 

In short, based on my experience I wouldn't worry about the lack of rhyming you describe.

[shannatheshedevil]

Thanks for everyone's input. I'm just going to skip rhyming for now and revisit it in the fall, when we start our language curriculum. I spent all afternoon reading articles that talked about the importance of rhyming, but it doesn't seem like a be-all-to-end-all at this stage. he's doing fine with phonics without it, so we'll just skip those parts for now. Thanks again! :)

[Spock]

One of my sons was reading chapter books before he learned to rhyme. He had no trouble with sounding out words at any point, but he couldn't get what was asked for in rhyming until he was almost 7.

[abbeyej]

Haven't used 100EZL (made my eyes cross), but ds was reading Harry Potter and the like before he could rhyme. He started reading fluently at age 3 -- pretty much anything you could hand him -- but he was close to six before he could rhyme. My daughter didn't read well 'til she was 5.5, but she could rhyme from the time she could talk.

 

So I'd be inclined to let it go.

[Storm Bay]

If your ds is learning to read with no trouble at 4, then I wouldn't worry about rhyming until he's 5 or 6. For dc who have difficulty with reading at 5 or 6, then rhyming and other phonemic awareness tests & work are very important.

 

My dc & I did a lot of rhyming games (too many for me after a while) but I think they were older than 4 when we started. Also, my ds used to even make up rhyming words for a while when he was 5 or so. The only one I worked on rhyming with specifically in regard to learning to read was my ds, but it turned out he just wasn't ready to read when he first turned 5.

[StephanieZ]

LOL, I so clearly remember having to take a few weeks playing rhyming games with dd#1 at that point in 100EZL before we could move on. So, for my younger dc, I made sure to play rhyming games from an early age so they were great rhymers (is that a word?!) by the time they began 100EZL.

 

I do think it is important. It will help them reading and spelling. Just take a break from 100EZL and play rhyming games for a few minutes every day. Make up silly songs, rhyme in the car. . . etc.