Research on how rhyming ability predicts reading success started back in the 1980s. In 1987, a study of three-year-olds reported that the more nursery rhymes the children knew, the better their phonological knowledge was later on (Maclean, Bryant, and Bradley).

Another study conducted in 1994 in the United Kingdom found differences in children with good, average, and poor reading ability based on rhyming awareness and speech rate (McDougall, Hulme, Ellis and Monk).

When your child rhymes words, his brain develops the ability to (1) Break words down into smaller words, (2) Learn the rhythm of the written and spoken word, (3) Learn word families such as den, ben, ten, men, and pen AND (4) Increases ability to spell new words

This fun and easy activity will strengthen your child’s vocabulary and also instill creativity in him!

Steps:

1. Have fun rhyming words; even if they are silly and make no sense! Prompt your child with a word ("tide" or "bad" etc.) and then list out as many rhyming words as you can get. Remember, it is not important for all the words to make sense at this time.

2. To make it even more fun and challenging, 'plug' the words into your child's favorite rhyme or song!