About this activity
Twelve pairs sorted by whether they rhyme: cat and hat, dog and log, sun and fun, bed and red, pig and big, car and star, moon and spoon, book and look and frog and log do rhyme; cup and dog, tree and shoe and cake and bike do not. The three non-rhyming pairs are the point — a judgement task needs both answers to be possible.
How to use it in a session
Say both words with the ending stretched and let the child judge. Judging is harder than matching, because there is no right answer to search for — the child has to attend to the sound and decide. Cake and bike is the interesting non-pair: they share a vowel-consonant pattern and differ in the vowel, which catches children who are matching on shape rather than sound. Eight minutes covers the twelve.
What to listen for
Watch the near misses. Cake and bike is the item that separates a child who hears rhyme from one who is judging by how the words look or by their final consonant. Notice whether the child can explain — they both end in -at is an explanation, and it shows the awareness is explicit rather than intuitive.
Carrying it home
Asking whether two words rhyme takes two seconds and works with anything. Getting it wrong on purpose is even better, because children love correcting an adult and it makes them listen carefully.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Kindergarten and first grade.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all twelve pairs play with no account.
- How is this different from the rhyme matching game?
- Matching asks the child to find a partner, which can be done by searching. This asks for a judgement about a given pair, including pairs that do not rhyme, which is the harder and more diagnostic task.