Rhyming activities for kindergarten intervention
By the IEP Atlas editorial teamLast updated
Short answer
Teach rhyme to kindergartners in a set order: listen to rhyme in songs and books, judge whether two words rhyme, pick the odd one out, match rhyming pictures, finish a rhyme in a sentence, then make rhymes on demand. Use 5 minutes a day, 10 items per activity, and move on when the student gets 8 of 10 on two probes.
Rhyme is often the first sound skill a kindergartner notices, and it makes a friendly warm-up for intervention. It is also easy to over-teach. Rhyme sits at the early end of the phonemic awareness continuum, and it is not a gate to phoneme work. If a student can already blend or isolate first sounds, teach those too.
The activities below go from easiest to hardest. Each one has a script, a word list and a criterion for moving on. For the full intervention routine, see the pillar guide on phonemic awareness interventions.
What to check before you start
Give a quick 10-item rhyme judgment probe: "Do these rhyme? cat, hat." Mix 5 rhyming pairs with 5 non-rhyming pairs. A student who gets 9 or 10 does not need rhyme lessons. A student under 6 of 10 needs the steps below.
Check two other things. First, make sure the student knows what "rhyme" means. Many wrong answers come from a child who thinks rhyme means "same first sound." Second, check hearing and speech. A student with frequent ear infections or a speech sound disorder may need the SLP's input before you read too much into the scores.
Step-by-step rhyming activities
Step 1: Hear rhyme in songs and books
Read a rhyming book or sing a rhyming song. Stop and point out the pair. "Listen: cat, hat. They sound the same at the end." Do 3 or 4 pairs per book. Do not quiz yet. This step only builds the idea.
Step 2: Yes or no rhyme judgment
Say two words. Students give a thumbs up for a rhyme and a thumbs down for no rhyme.
- Rhyme: sun, bun; pig, wig; top, mop; bell, shell; cake, lake
- No rhyme: sun, sit; pig, pan; top, tub; bell, ball; cake, cup
Use non-rhyming pairs that share a first sound. That is the confusion you want to break. Do 10 pairs a day in mixed order.
Step 3: Odd one out
Say three words. Two rhyme, one does not. "Which one does not belong? hat, mat, dog." Start with pictures on the table so memory is not the problem. Sample sets: fan, man, cup; ring, king, boat; log, frog, sock; bee, tree, shoe.
Step 4: Match rhyming pictures
Lay out 6 picture cards in pairs that rhyme, such as goat and boat, star and car. The student picks one and finds its partner, saying both words aloud. Take one card away from each pair and replace it with a non-rhyming card to make it harder.
Step 5: Finish the rhyme
Say a short sentence and stop before the last word. "I saw a cat sit on a ___." The student supplies "mat" or "hat." Picture books with a strong rhyme pattern work well here. Accept any word that rhymes and makes sense.
Step 6: Make a rhyme on demand
"Tell me a word that rhymes with bug." This is the hardest step, because the student must hold the word, strip the first sound and add a new one. Accept made-up words: "zug" shows the skill as well as "rug." Start with families that have many real rhymes: -at, -ig, -op, -un, -ell.
Worked example: Leo, kindergarten
Leo is a fictional kindergartner in a tier 2 group in October. His rhyme judgment probe is 4 of 10, and he says "yes" whenever two words start the same. He gets 3 of 10 on odd one out with pictures and 0 of 10 on rhyme production.
His teacher spends 5 minutes a day on rhyme, inside a 20-minute group that also works on letter sounds. Every Friday she gives a new 10-item probe.
| Week | Judgment (of 10) | Odd one out (of 10) | Production (of 10) | Change made |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | 4 | 3 | 0 | Start steps 1 and 2 |
| 1 | 5 | 3 | 0 | Add same-first-sound distractors on purpose |
| 2 | 7 | 5 | 1 | Add step 3 with pictures |
| 3 | 8 | 6 | 1 | Add step 4 matching |
| 4 | 9 | 8 | 2 | Start step 6 with -at and -ig only |
| 5 | 9 | 8 | 4 | Accept nonsense rhymes |
| 6 | 10 | 9 | 6 | Drop rhyme to warm-up; start onset-rime blending |
By week 6, Leo is not perfect at production, and that is fine. His team moves him on to onset and rime activities, which build on the same "first sound plus the rest" idea. Production keeps improving in short warm-ups.
If his IEP includes rhyme, the goal might read: "Given 10 spoken words, Leo will say a real or made-up rhyming word for 8 of 10 on 2 consecutive weekly probes." Baseline: 0 of 10. The produce a rhyming word template has the full wording. More options are on the rhyming IEP goals page.
How long to spend on rhyme
Keep rhyme to about 5 minutes a session for most kindergartners in intervention. If a student is still under 5 of 10 on judgment after 6 weeks of daily practice, stop and look again. Check hearing, check whether the student understands the task, and try a different response mode such as pointing to pictures.
At the same time, probe phoneme skills. The What Works Clearinghouse guide for kindergarten to grade 3 recommends building awareness of individual speech sounds and linking them to letters.[1] Rhyme supports that work, but it does not replace it.
Common mistakes
- Weak: "Do cat and car rhyme?" as a yes item, because they "sound alike." Better: Rhymes match from the vowel to the end: cat, hat. Cat and car share only the first sound.
- Weak: Asking for a rhyme with "orange" or "purple." Better: Use short words from big families: hat, pig, mop, sun.
- Weak: Rejecting "zat" as a rhyme for "cat." Better: Accept nonsense rhymes. The goal is the sound pattern, not vocabulary.
- Weak: Practicing rhyme all year with a student who cannot blend. Better: Move to phoneme blending activities once judgment reaches 8 of 10.
- Weak: Saying the words with exaggerated stress on the ending every time. Better: Fade the stress over 2 weeks, so the student hears rhyme in normal speech.
Tools and templates
- The phonological awareness goals page lists 60 templates, including pick the picture that rhymes and find the word that does not rhyme.
- The K to 2 goals hub groups goals for the grade band.
- Record each item on the opportunity trial data sheet: 10 boxes, a plus or minus each, and the total.
- Check a draft goal in the goal checker before the meeting.
Frequently asked questions
What rhyming skills should a kindergartner have?
Most kindergartners learn to tell whether two words rhyme and to pick a rhyming picture. Making a rhyme on demand is harder and often develops later in the year. Students who cannot judge rhyme by midyear may benefit from short daily practice.
Should I teach rhyming before phonemic awareness?
Rhyme makes a good starting point, but you do not need to wait for mastery. If a student can blend or isolate first sounds, teach those skills at the same time. Phoneme skills matter more for decoding.
Is a made-up word an acceptable rhyme?
Yes. A nonsense word like zat for cat shows that the student heard the ending and changed the first sound. That is the skill. Real words are a bonus, not a requirement.
Use it in IEP Atlas
- Phonological awareness goals (reading)
- K to 2 IEP goals
- Phonological awareness in the IEP glossary
- Opportunity trial data sheet
- IEP goal checker
Related guides
- Phonemic awareness interventions for students with IEPs
- Rhyming IEP goals: 24 examples with baselines and data sheets
- Onset and rime activities for small groups
- The phonemic awareness continuum: how the skills develop in order
- Blending sounds activities: phoneme blending in teaching order
- Phonemic awareness activities for 1st grade intervention
- Syllable segmenting activities, from clapping to long words
Sources
- Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, What Works Clearinghouse, Institute of Education Sciences
Written and checked by the IEP Atlas editorial team under our editorial policy. This guide describes general practice and federal rules. It is not legal advice; your state may add requirements, and the IEP team makes the decisions for each student.