What rhymes with socks? For those of you who have been following this blog, you know that at least once a month, I post a blog about rhyming. Such a simple, little word game as making words that rhyme really prepares your child for later learning to read. Children need to be able to hear the bits of sounds that make up words and then combine them in different ways. This is called phonological awareness. Later on, these sound bits get attached to letters. For instance, the at in cat is one sound piece that is in mat, hat, and rat. Once a child can read cat, it’s easy to read the other words.

Children will learn to rhyme about the age of 4, but in the meantime, they need to hear lots of rhyming words. This can be in stories, songs, and games. Parents and caregivers usually need to start as they talk to little ones.  “Hey, there’s a rock in my sock. Sock-rock. They sound almost the same. What else sounds like sock?   Block, my sock is going to walk around the block. That sounds the same, too.” Make up some other rhymes, too. If a sock is red, what sounds like that? Or blue?

Word game play is one way to help your child with kindergarten readiness. Does this idea rock your socks?