I Say the Rhyme: A Phonemic Awareness Reader — Rhyme Recognition

Before a child can sound out a word, she has to hear that words are made of sound at all. I Hear the Sound taught her that sound exists and can be attended to. I Say the Rhyme teaches her the next thing: that sounds can match. Rhyme recognition is the first phonological skill a young child can perform rather than merely notice, and it is the direct gateway to onset-rime - the skill every word family depends on. A child who hears that cat and hat go together is already doing the work that will later let her read mat, sat, and flat without being taught each one separately. Across twelve gentle spreads, Lani finds a rhyme everywhere she looks: a cat under a hat, a dog on a log, a snail on a pail, a train in the rain. Each page names a pair and then reaches for a third word, so the child practises extending a pattern rather than simply recognising one. The book closes with a note for the adult reading it aloud, an activity page built around the child's own name, and five simple games that carry the skill off the page and into the house. Book 2 of the Decode to Read(TM) Level 1 series - five readers that walk a child from sound awareness to oral blending, and hand her off ready to decode.