- bag (labeled night)
- picture/word cards (rhyme with night (i.e., bright, kite, fight, light, write, white); do not rhyme with night)
- night
- sound
MA Standards:
Foundational Skills/RF.PK.MA.2.a With guidance and support, recognize and produce rhyming words (e.g., identify words that rhyme with /cat/ such as /bat/ and /sat/).
Head Start Outcomes:
Language Development/Receptive Language: Attends to language during conversations, songs, stories, or other learning experiences.
Literacy Knowledge/Phonological Awareness: Identifies and discriminates between sounds and phonemes in language, such as attention to beginning and ending sounds of words and recognition that different words begin or end with the same sound.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Reading and Literature 8: Listen to, identify, and manipulate language sounds to develop auditory discrimination and phonemic awareness.
Word Play: Rhyme Game: "night"
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
ELA Focus Skills: Phonological Awareness, Speaking and Listening, Vocabulary
Educator Prep: Use index cards and illustrations/pictures to create picture/word cards. The majority of cards should rhyme with the word night. (i.e., bright, kite, fight, light, write, white)
Have children repeat the word night after you. Say the word again slowly, emphasizing the ending sound -ight.
Then have children listen to the words night and kite as you say them aloud slowly. Tell children the words rhyme, or end with the same sound. Have them repeat the words after you.
Do the same with the words night and country. Ask, Does the word country rhyme with the word night? Why or why not? Elicit that they do not end with the same sound.
Display a bag labeled with the word night and the picture/word cards.
- Tell children that only things that rhyme with the word night go into the bag.
- Hold up a picture word card and ask, Does the word <white> rhyme with, or have the same ending sound as the word night? Say, night, white. Have children repeat the words after you.
- Pause to let children respond and have a volunteer place the card in the bag.
- Invite children to pick up a card, name it, and say whether it belongs in the bag. Continue until all the cards have been sorted.
Educator Tip: Guided and independent letter, sound, and word practice continues to take place in center activities. It is helpful to set up the literacy center immediately after the direct instruction and repeat instruction before children work in the literacy center identifying letters.