Funny, but I think it’s been a few weeks since I mentioned rhyming. Rhyming is such a critical skill that it can be used to predict children’s reading success. While the reason isn’t obvious, being able to rhyme shows that children can divide words up into their sound bits and then recombine them to make new words. This skill has it’s own name–phonological awareness. It is often included on kindergarten readiness evaluations, not because it’s expected that all 4 and 5 year olds can rhyme but because it gives a good idea of a child’s ability to hear and use language and where to begin learning 
activities. Word games of all kinds help with readiness for kindergarten.
While all children develop at their own rate, parents and caregivers can help children learn this skill with some rhyme time. Easter has lots of great words for word families: bunny rhymes with funny, money, honey and sunny. Hop sounds like drop, stop, top, mop, pop and bop. Try chick or hen. Various color words are easy to rhyme, too: blue, red, green, pink, white, and black but not purple or orange. Chocolate is very hard to rhyme…maybe just eat it instead! Do you have time to rhyme?
