Does my child really need to focus on rhyming?

[FNellenback]

My son will be 5 in October and has recently tested at a first grade level with reading. He's not very good at choosing between which words rhyme as opposed to which words don't independently but he can tell me if I ask him. He can recognize it but the recall is just not there. At least, not for testing purposes. Do we really need to focus on rhyming as a skill? Is that still beneficial after kids have started reading independently? 

[freesia]

Rhyming does continue to be important for spelling and decoding advanced words. So, yes, it’s beneficial. However, As your child is 4, it doesn’t seem odd that the recall isn’t there yet. I wouldn’t focus on it. I would read poems and play around with rhymes ( Jack Sprat could eat no fat) naturally as part of life. He will get it. 

[knitgrl]

Our experience: Dd did not get rhyming in K or 1st grade. She is now 11 and has always been a voracious reader. So it didn't hurt her in terms of reading ability. Though, to be truthful, she was a terrible speller in the early grades. She's not ready for any spelling bees at this point, but her spelling has improved quite a bit. Also, she understands rhyming now. I would say, don't sweat it.

[Not_a_Number]

I know that we taught DD8 to read early and she wasn't quite getting rhyming when she learned to read. She's a voracious reader and an excellent speller, so can't say it mattered here. 

[KSera]

One of mine didn't get rhyming by the expected age, but did become a great reader. She is a (stealth) dyslexic and her spelling is one of the main areas affected by it. She can spell well enough now for it not to be appalling, but it was pretty bad until she was in her mid teens. All my other kids, none of whom are dyslexic, learned to rhyme by 3 or 4. Late rhyming is frequently given as a potential sign of dyslexia.

[Swimmer1112]

We didn’t do rhyming with ds. He was tested in 3rd grade by his charter school and tested 10 grade reading. So in our case, I don’t think rhyming matters.

[kiwik]

My eldest could see a rhyme written well before he could hear it.  I used to play games in the car.  What is the odd one out "cat, rat, rhinoceros'' etc.

[HomeAgain]

Rhyming didn't happen naturally here.  I had fluent readers before they were comfortable with the task of rhyming.

In a lot of programs, they still do things the old way where phonics consists of learning an ending, and then a different beginning sound is put in front. (look at JanBrett materials to see a model of it).  So they want kids to see the entire last part of the word as a word shape and not have to sound it out each time.

This isn't how my kids learned to read.  They learned how to sound out each and every word and gain fluency/comprehension from a model of sounding out the words, reading the story or sentence, and then reading the story/sentence again slightly faster.  Rhyming lists didn't matter. 

Rhyming did come into play in learning to read poetry or keeping rhythm in other pieces.  It was an easy way to begin to look for auditory patterns.  It just wasn't necessary for phonics instruction.

[Not_a_Number]

16 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Rhyming didn't happen naturally here.  I had fluent readers before they were comfortable with the task of rhyming.

In a lot of programs, they still do things the old way where phonics consists of learning an ending, and then a different beginning sound is put in front. (look at JanBrett materials to see a model of it).  So they want kids to see the entire last part of the word as a word shape and not have to sound it out each time.

This isn't how my kids learned to read.  They learned how to sound out each and every word and gain fluency/comprehension from a model of sounding out the words, reading the story or sentence, and then reading the story/sentence again slightly faster.  Rhyming lists didn't matter. 

Rhyming did come into play in learning to read poetry or keeping rhythm in other pieces.  It was an easy way to begin to look for auditory patterns.  It just wasn't necessary for phonics instruction.

Curiously, I had two different experiences with this one. DD8 was a natural phonics reader (very linear, always read letter by letter) and DD5 was more of a natural whole word reader (had trouble reading the letters in order, but was very good at filling the letters in using context.) Out of the two of them, DD5 was much better at rhyming and at predicting words via rhyming. DD8, on the other hand, just sounded things out faster and faster until she was fluent. 

Anyway, out of the two of them, DD8 had a far easier time learning to read. DD5 had way more trouble telling letter combinations apart and still can't really read by putting her finger under the word and doing each letter in order -- she has to make herself read carefully in order and it's work for her. 

So for us, rhyming wasn't at all predictive of ease of reading. 

Edited May 1, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[mathmarm]

We teach reading early so we don't wait for rhyming.

But we don't teach reading via word-families "The rat sat on the cat."
We teach explicit decoding L-R as they learn their letters, digraphs, long and short vowels. We put a huge emphasis on decoding, in my experience and opinion, you do not need to focus on rhyming.

You need to just continue to work on reading and make sure that your kiddos decoding skills advance as quickly as possible and that you work on comprehension at the appropriate level rather than trying to get it to keep up with decoding if decoding is able to advance faster than the comprehension.

[forty-two]

12 hours ago, KSera said:

One of mine didn't get rhyming by the expected age, but did become a great reader. She is a (stealth) dyslexic and her spelling is one of the main areas affected by it. She can spell well enough now for it not to be appalling, but it was pretty bad until she was in her mid teens. All my other kids, none of whom are dyslexic, learned to rhyme by 3 or 4. Late rhyming is frequently given as a potential sign of dyslexia.

This was much like our experience with oldest.  At four she couldn't rhyme to save her life - when I'd try to do little informal rhyming activities with her, she'd just stare at me with no comprehension of what I was trying to ask her to do.  Despite my teaching her with strict phonics, she ended up reading almost completely visually (although with great speed and comprehension), with extremely horrific spelling.  Turned out it was because she didn't have the phonemic processing skills needed to learn to read phonetically.  We did a lot of homegrown remediation, and her spelling improved from horrific to garden-variety bad to pretty decent (not more than one or two misspellings on a page) by 8th grade.  And she can rhyme (I checked, just to be sure, lol).

OP's ds sounds like he's doing better than my dd was, though - he can do it with her even though he can't do it on a test alone - and that might be less a phonemic processing thing than just not being ready for the more abstract testing (which I wouldn't worry much about). OP, if I were you, I'd keep an eye on your ds's spelling and continued progress on reading, and read plenty of nursery rhymes and children's poetry, but otherwise not be too concerned.

Edited May 1, 2021 by forty-two

[Dmmetler]

Putting on my ECED hat here. 

For most children, rhyming comes before reading because there is an intermediate step of decoding words into sounds. Rhymes are one of the most clear sound groups, so tend to be decoded earlier, and auditory recognition typically comes before written recognition.  For those kids, rhymers become readers (that's almost a direct quote from Mem Fox, the Australian children's author). For early readers who are wired to pick up visual patterns, as opposed to sound, it's going to manage less.  Both groups eventually become fluent readers with appropriate instruction, and often without it, once enough patterns have been internalized (which is why there are whole generations who learned to read despite sight word based systems). 

Kids who don't pick up either auditory OR visual patterns easily generally will be diagnosable with a learning disability by or before age 8. 

 

So, basically, if your child is reading, but not rhyming, don't sweat it. They likely are reading by sight more than sound. Phonics may be helpful for spelling, and certainly won't hurt.  If your child is rhyming at the expected age, they will probably read on schedule and will benefit from a phonics program, but probably don't need really intensive multisensory phonics. If your child is doing neither at the expected age, check phonemic awareness and visual processing, and go from there. (LiPS/Developmental Optometrist/Barton, most likely). 

[PeterPan]

Rhyming is a natural part of language development and reflects understanding the parts of words, not just whole words, which is why struggling with it leads to difficulty with spelling. Does this dc have any issues with comprehension or any other developmental differences? Precocious reading can be concerning if it's not connected to strong comprehension. My ds has ASD2 and ended up hyperlexic (reading beyond comprehension) even though he was dyslexic. He could "pass" multiple choice comprehension tests because he was quite bright (which a 4 yo reading well clearly is), but he couldn't draw a picture of what he read. 

So no, having btdt I would *not* skip phonological processing skills. But how concerned you are depends on the context of everything else you're seeing. In general with a 4/5 yo, I would play games for phonological processing of sounds, syllables, etc. For example https://www.amazon.com/Junior-Learning-Rhyming-Dominoes-Educational/dp/B077BY4QXY/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=rhyming+dominoes&qid=1619936971&sr=8-2  I used games like this with my ds when he was this age. If there are any other indications of developmental differences or challenges, then I would be looking at auditory processing of language. 

[Ellie]

I had no idea until this forum that "rhyming" was an important skill. Didn't do it with either of my children. Neither had trouble learning to read. Spalding, which is my favorite learn-to-read-and-spell method, doesn't discuss it at all. Which is to say I just can't get worked up about it.

[MerryAtHope]

On 4/29/2021 at 8:05 PM, FNellenback said:

My son will be 5 in October and has recently tested at a first grade level with reading. He's not very good at choosing between which words rhyme as opposed to which words don't independently but he can tell me if I ask him. He can recognize it but the recall is just not there. At least, not for testing purposes. Do we really need to focus on rhyming as a skill? Is that still beneficial after kids have started reading independently? 

Rhyming is one of many phonological awareness skills (alliteration, segmenting words into sounds, and counting syllables are some other examples.) Kids who know how to rhyme generally do find reading a bit easier, but some kids learn to read before they can rhyme. I wouldn't be overly concerned about a 4 year-old who is not rhyming yet--some kids don't catch on until they are a bit older, and that's okay! Having a strong foundation of phonological awareness skills will help with both reading and spelling though, so it's worth working on informally--just have fun with it! Read books with rhyme, play rhyming games in the car (I spy with my little eye, something that rhymes with ____ ....etc...) This article has lots of ideas and some free downloads. 

[Clarita]

As a non-expert in the field of education, rhyming seems like a really hard skill to me. I had a hard time explaining it to my son. Sure table rhymes with fable, but does action rhyme with application... So, I gave up teaching rhyming. My 4 year old can blend and spell phonetic words, so I'm not worried.

[stripe]

Maybe do things that include rhymes that are fun, like singing songs or reading fun poetry (that rhymes). I think there’s a lot you can do that wouldn’t feel tedious.

[Xahm]

My 4 year old reads pretty well but might have difficulty on a test about rhyming depending on that day. He often forgets the definition for the word "rhyme," so if I list CAT, BAG, BAT and ask him which 2 rhyme, he would likely ask, "is rhyming the beginning of the word or the end?" and then be fine after I clarified. I don't know how common that confusion is, but it might explain a difficulty on a test that isn't there when working with you.

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, Xahm said:

My 4 year old reads pretty well but might have difficulty on a test about rhyming depending on that day. He often forgets the definition for the word "rhyme," so if I list CAT, BAG, BAT and ask him which 2 rhyme, he would likely ask, "is rhyming the beginning of the word or the end?" and then be fine after I clarified. I don't know how common that confusion is, but it might explain a difficulty on a test that isn't there when working with you.

Oh yes, DD5 absolutely says "rhyming" for alliteration. She does know the difference, but she forgets the words! 

[PeterPan]

3 hours ago, Xahm said:

My 4 year old reads pretty well but might have difficulty on a test about rhyming depending on that day. He often forgets the definition for the word "rhyme," so if I list CAT, BAG, BAT and ask him which 2 rhyme, he would likely ask, "is rhyming the beginning of the word or the end?" and then be fine after I clarified. I don't know how common that confusion is, but it might explain a difficulty on a test that isn't there when working with you.

That seems normal! Also if he can do it when given a model, that’s good. A dc with phonological processing problems is going to struggle even with a model.

[forty-two]

On 5/5/2021 at 3:33 AM, Clarita said:

As a non-expert in the field of education, rhyming seems like a really hard skill to me. I had a hard time explaining it to my son. Sure table rhymes with fable, but does action rhyme with application... So, I gave up teaching rhyming. My 4 year old can blend and spell phonetic words, so I'm not worried.

Yeah, when you really dig into rhyme, there's all sorts of nuances (I found it very overwhelming).  Rhymer (an online rhyming dictionary) lists six different kinds of rhymes you can search for on their site:
*end rhymes (shoe/blue, cat/hat) - beginning rhyming starts here, I think
*last syllable rhymes (timber, harbor) - that would be your action/application, I think
*double rhymes (conviction/prediction) - where the last *two* syllables match
*triple rhymes (transportation/dissertation) - where the last *three* syllables match
*beginning rhymes (physics/fizzle) - same initial consonant sound plus same first vowel sound - useful for finding initial alliteration, initial assonance, and front rhyme
*first-syllable rhymes (carrot/caring) - same sounds preceding the first syllable break

Plus there are masculine and feminine rhymes; masculine rhymes are rhyming words with a stressed final syllable, while feminine rhymes are rhyming words with an unstressed final syllable.

But preschool rhyming is usually just end rhymes - anything that has the same ending sound rhymes, no matter how many syllables precede that sound.

[regentrude]

We never specifically taught or practiced rhyming, but the kids had been familiar with end rhyme early on through poems, nursery rhymes, rhymed children's books, and songs - well before formally learning to read.

I don't think this is something I would drill, but I would make an extra point to increase the amount of rhymed content they encounter.

[Clarita]

On 5/7/2021 at 10:22 AM, forty-two said:

But preschool rhyming is usually just end rhymes - anything that has the same ending sound rhymes, no matter how many syllables precede that sound.

Good to know. My son is back to being interested in rhyming and meter - he is thinking about why certain books have that poetic flow.  I struggle teaching my son things that are not well defined because he is so analytical. So I struggle teaching him a lot of the English stuff.