How do I get Hanna to understand - rhyming words

My2Beauties wrote: OK every night I've been trying to work on different skills with Hanna. Here lately we've been coloring a lot and making sure that we choose the right colors for certain objects. She got a Halloween coloring book, so for example I say what color should you color the pumpkins? Trees? Etc. So, last night we were reading her princess book, it's a matching book. In the back of the book it has other things each parent can do to teach their child different things with each page that has a princess on it. Like on Belle's page (beauty and the beast) she had tons of forks and spoons in her picture because she was at a dinner party so it asked the parent to count the number of forks, then spoons etc.. with their child. So we did all that. We got to one page that was about rhyming words. I kept trying to use synonyms for rhyming like "sounds like" etc.. I would what picture on this page rhymes with the world "lock" - there was a large clock in the picture and she kept saying mommy there is no lock. So I'd say clock. I would say see how they sound alike? She's say yes I do. So I said what word rhymes with blue in this picture - they all had on "shoes" so she couldn't get anything, she kept pointing to blue stuff and I said see the "shoe" on this man, shoe rhymes with blue see how they sound alike? She kept saying his shoes aren't blue mommy they're black

How can I explain this concept to her? Any ideas. I wanna work with her a little more on this. She'll be 4 next month. She won't get to go to school next year so she has one more full year before she goes but I still want to start working with her on basic concepts now. Her b'day falls too late in the year, she won't be 5 until Nov 14th of 2008 and the cut off is Oct 1, so she'll be close to 6 when she goes.

One other thing I noticed. She can count to 11 perfectly, she knows the numbers between 12 and 20, but she doesn't know them in order. So when we were counting last night, she'd jump from 11 to 14 and then from 14 to 17 etc.. Should I just keep counting with her? Is this the best way? Maybe give her stickers for everytime she can count from 1-20 right? What are some things you guys have tried with your kids.

Oh and one more question sorry...when is a good time to teach your kids to tie their own shoe?

A&A'smommy replied: Hmmm play a rhyming game with her..
like you say Lock rhymes with block
and then ask her
what rhymes with book

cook or monkey it takes some practice but she will get it quick

you can start teaching her now to tie her shoes.. I started teaching Alyssa to tie anything in particular. But now I'm going to start teaching her to tie her shoes..

I had 3 years olds in my dance class that could tie shoes.. so she isn't to young to get the concept.. although she may not "want" to learn.

redchief replied: Dr. Seuss?

DansMom replied: Her age is right to still be confused by rhymes and what the game is. And what happens is that a lightbulb will go off one day and she'll just suddenly get it. In Daniel's Kindergarten they are still working on this---the teacher does a song and asks for a rhyming word. Kids raise their hands and give something in the same category, but not a rhyme, most of the time! This tells me that it's not as obvious to them at this age what is being asked.

I like the Dr. Seuss suggestion though. Kids pay attention to nonsense words, and what's good about them is that they only have that sound category as a way to identify them. Clock---schlock---block---kaplock.

I'd say she's on target with counting too. It's not unusual to skip numbers and say them out of order at that age. If she's visual, having a number grid can sometimes help numbers make sense.

momofone replied: My daughter liked the learning internet web sites they make learning fun.

Kaitlin'smom replied: I just posted the oter day about Kaitlin and her rhyming, its seems like one day it just clicked, and she is starting to read certain words. Just keep at it, we used cat hat bat ect there are tons with at.

Kaitlin can count to 100 but sometimes forgets whats next, example 29 she will forget 30 is nest but once she is hinted she can get up to 39 and then need a hint again. She also used to skip numbers 11-20 at Hanna's age.

tieing shoes, kaitlin has the first part down but not the ears part and now she does not have shoes that tie, so we will have to get some and work on that as well.

your doing great keep it up mom

Boo&BugsMom replied: www.starfall.com is a great reading readiness website.

What she's doing is very common and age appropriate. Believe it or not a lot of kindergarteners do not know how to rhyme when they start. When I started rhyming with Tanner we did a lot of flashcard matching games with rhyming words and pictures. We did lots of songs that rhymed. Explain to her that it's the ending sound that rhymes, not the beginning. Try making or buying a pocket calendar to keep track of the days every morning. Using a calendar does wonders for math skills. Count out the days every morning and let her point to the numerals.

MommyToAshley replied: I think she's right on target for her age. Rhyming is a hard concept to get. I think I explained it to Ashley as the last part of the word sounds the same and then gave some examples. I would just go to the library and get lots of books on rhyming. I don't care for the Dr Suess books, but kids seem to love them. I hate to read them though an try to hide them, but Ashley always seems to find them even on the bottom of the stack..

As for counting, it is just repitition... counting over and over again. I would start out counting to ten one day, then the next day, count to 11, then the next day count to 12. This ways she doesn't have to try to remember the order of every number but can build on what she already knows.

My2Beauties replied: Thanks for the good ideas guys. I like the Dr Seuss idea, I didn't really think about any of his books. I don't like reading them either Dee Dee, I can hardly pronounce half the words myself! She is extremely intelligent, I mean she can do matching games, where if you show her a picture of something that should be on a page in a book, she finds it in the page. She could probably find Waldo before I could She knows her ABC's and can write and recognize very few of them. I think H (because her name starts with H), A (obvious reasons) N (obvious) and I and O are the only ones I can think of. She can draw people really well (stick figures mainly) and is starting to color more inside the lines, but can still be quite a bit messy when she wants to. She is really good with colors, she's ok with shapes too, she has a hard time with rectangle and square and the difference! As probably any 3 year old would. Keep the suggestions coming, I love them! They are all awesome! Oh yes and I also like the counting to 11 one day, 12 the next day etc.. I'm gonna try that!

Oh yeah and the tieing her shoes thing, she knows how to sing the song (Spongebob taught her that...LOL). I think we might wait on that a while, she won't even put her own shoes on unless they are sandals and have velcro

jcc64 replied: About the number skipping- totally normal. My older kids' pre-K teacher said that kids always seem to skip 13 or 14 for some unknown reason.
And the concept itself of rhyming is hard to verbalize. Just keep doing it in the car when you're running errands- "cat-hat" , "see-tree" - we do alot of pre-reading stuff in the car. She'll get it eventually, LeaAnn. Just keep it low pressure- if she gets the idea it's important to you, she's likely to shut down.

My3LilMonkeys replied: Brooke is almost exactly the same age and she skips 6 and 7 half the time - but the rest of the time can get to 17 or so perfectly. Drives me crazy. We just keep repeating them, counting everything and she is getting it right more and more often now.

As for rhyming, I agree with Dr. Seuss. We read TONS of Dr. Seuss (I'm the odd one I guess, I LOVE reading Dr. Seuss out loud) and Brooke is starting to understand the rhyming concept - she can pick the rhyming words in Fox in Socks because that's the one we read the most often.

maestra replied:
I couldn't agree more. What you've done already is making her much more prepared than most kids are when they enter. It's important to take advantage of those "teachable moments", but not to pressure too much.

The most common numbers to confuse while counting are 13, 14, and 15. It's because these numbers are not said n a way that makes sense- if they did it would be threeteen, fourteen, and fiveteen (and many kids will say them that way!). My dh worked with both on their counting, and he does it with games. Giselle will be 3 in Jan, and counts to 10, because Henry plays a finger game with her. She counts each of his fingers, bending each one closed to make two fists. When she hits 10, he says "10 fingers to tickle you with!" and then he tickles her. She loves it. (He first started the game with five)


For the rhyming, Dr. Seuss is good, but I agree- I can't stand his books (I also don't like Goodnight Moon though). Rhyming songs are great- try to make up extra verses, just like the song "Down By the Bay". In kindergarten, they just have to be able to identify if two words rhyme, not actually generate their own rhymes, which is actually much harder. But, if you want them to generate rhymes, it is important to accept nonsense words, especially in the beginning.

As for tying shoes- some kids are ready earlier, but most lack the fine motor skills to do it at 4-6. Most of my first graders still cannot tie shoes. We have class experts that do, and they help the kids that can't ( I try not to tie shoes, especially when I was big and pregnant!). At the beginning of second grade, I sent that home for homework the first week of school- if they couldn't already do it by then. Most figure it out by the end of first.

I hope that helps!

My2Beauties replied:
Thank you so much that was a big help. I hear people talking about their 3 and 4 year olds counting to 50 or 100 and I think Yipes, Hanna can only count to 10 perfectly, so I thought I'd start with 1-20 now. That makes me feel better. I figured rhyming was a hard concept, I may leave it alone for a while until she's closer to school age. I might stick with the numbers, shapes (she's identifying them ok, but not all the time) and animals and colors, etc... Sounds like these are the key basic concepts she needs to be learning.

Oh and in Kindergarten are they required to be able to write? Hanna hates to write Everytime I say let's spell your name she says no I don't want to I don't want to spell but she'll sing her ABC's with no problem at all. She knows them but has no clue how to write them except for H,A,N, I and O. They aren't very easy to make out either Should they just be able to recognize all the letters and not necessarily write them? Sorry I'm full of questions.

Boo&BugsMom replied: LeeAnn, you can try to get her to trace her name first. Tracing is usually the first step before writing. Write her name with a highlighter and have her trace it using a fat pencil or a crayon. Call the school district to see what type of font they use and use that. Once she has the tracing down then advance on to writing it freehand. That might help her like it more.

maestra replied:
Numbers, shapes, animals and colors are perfect!

As for writing, we love it if they can write their name when they start, but they don't have to be able to write any other words. Most of my students only recognize the letters of their name when they come in (sometimes not even that), so knowing all of the letters is great!

MommyToAshley replied:
I was going to add... If you teach her to write her name, teach her to use upper and lower case letters correctly from the beginning. Ashley had been writing her name in all caps for about two years so it became habit and it was hard to break when they wanted her to use upper and lower case in Kindergarten. I wish I had taught her that from the very beginning.

mysweetpeasWil&Wes replied: She seems right on to me. You're doing a great job LeaAnn. I've been working on rhyming with Wil by singing songs like "Twinkle Twinkle". For instance, each ending word rhymes "twinkle twinkle little STAR, how I wonder what you ARE". As we sing it, I emphasize those two words and Wil does too. Wil counts the same way, he can count to 15 or so, but always misses 11, 12, 13. Sometimes he even says a letter like X in place of a number. I think it's all about practice. Just keep repeating them with her. Discovery Toys has some great toys for counting. There is also this cookie jar toy that I've seen at Target (a friend of mine has it). Each cookie has a number on it. Sortof like the fake food for play kitchens, but they can see and play with numbers as they drop them into the cookie jar. Wil LOVED this at our friend's house. Flashcards are also great. Each morning in preschool, Wil has to sit at his table and trace the letters of his name. They use those transparent wipe-off cards. You can buy them at any educational toy store or Discovery Toys has them too. At only 3, Wil can now write his name (it's short, but still wows me) in chalk when we are outside. He can't yet identify letters in an alphabet, but he can write his name and say the letters out loud. If she knows her alphabet already, then she is way up there IMO. Tieing the shoes, I wouldn't know what age is appropriate. Four does seem too young though IMO.