5 Summary

This unit has introduced you to rhyming games, songs and word play. There is a serious purpose to rhymes and play with words. The ability to hear and distinguish similar and different sound patterns and word patterns is an important pre reading skill. Children who have a lot of experience with rhyming poems and stories are often able to read with expression.

We hope you have gained ideas about how to use rhymes in English and in students’ home languages to encourage pre-reading skills and the enjoyment of language.

Other Elementary English teacher development units on this topic are:

  • Classroom routines
  • Using the textbook creatively
  • Learning English in the creative arts
  • Letters and sounds of English.

4 Using rhymes to teach English in the classroom