Read a rhyming story or nursery rhyme together with your child. Pause at the end of some lines to let your child fill in the rhyming words. “Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the ____________.”

Letting children fill in the rhyming words in a story does several things. It encourages them to listen carefully, an important part of building oral language skills. It helps them recognize the different beginning sounds in words that rhyme, an important phonological awareness skill. And it makes reading active, which makes it more fun!