Rhyme Time at the Zoo: Learn to Read Three-Letter Word Families

It's time to rhyme! 

Join me, Teacher Karen, as we explore rhyming and word families in this zoo animal themed ongoing reading class! During this weekly class, learners will focus on building their reading and phonics skills as they work on learning rhyming sounds. 

The ability to recognize and produce rhyming words is an important phonological awareness skill. Rhyming teaches children how language works. It helps them notice and work with the sounds within words. Children’s books, especially ones for beginner readers, often use rhyme. Rhyming is fun and it adds joy to the sometimes daunting task of learning to read! When children are familiar with a rhyming book, they learn to anticipate the rhyming words. This prepares them to make predictions when they read, which is another important reading skill. Rhyming is important for writing too. It can help children understand that words that share common sounds often share common letters. For example, the rhyming words “like” and “bike” both end with -ike. This is also often referred to as a "word family" in phonics. 

Each week we will be joined by our zoo animal friends Penny the Panda, Ryan the Rhino, Trent the Tiger, and Oliver the Otter. These zoo characters will help guide learners as they learn a new rhyming sound each week. This class will focus on three letter rhyme endings. Classes will begin with an introduction to the word family of the week. Learners will learn to read vocabulary words containing the target rhyme. Next, we will play a fun "Do They Rhyme?" game together to practice the rhyming sound. 

Then, learners will complete a printable worksheet that incorporates words with the rhyme learned that day in class. This is a great chance for learners to work on their writing and fine motor skills. Worksheets will be uploaded weekly to the Outschool classroom page at least 24 hours before each class starts. Finally, we will end class with building sentences. Learners will need to work together to fill in the missing rhyming words.
 
Here is the class schedule indicating weekly rhyming topics with example vocabulary words that students will learn:

Fall Schedule
Week of October 3-9: "ame" (game, name)
Week of October 10-16: "eel" (peel, wheel)
Week of October 17-23: "oil" (boil, soil)
Week of October 24-30: "ent" (tent, bent)

Please note: Learners will need to have basic reading skills in order to be successful in this class. They should at least know all of their letter names and sounds and be starting to learn to read. This class will incorporate many visual aids to help learners with word recognition.  

I hope to see your learner in my classroom soon. Happy learning! :)