The craziness and excitement of the holiday season can definitely make teaching challenging. You’re tired. Students are excited about the long holiday break. You need to continue with your curriculum and keep your students engaged. This onset and rime holiday word building activity is great to not only work on building words, but it gets your students in that holiday spirit!
The Importance of Onset and Rimes
There are so many reading terms that we as educators need to know. It can be overwhelming. But the more you have these terms in mind when teaching and lesson planning it all becomes easier.
So what are onsets and rimes? Onsets are the beginning phonological sound of any word. They are either an initial consonant, vowel, blend or digraph (more terms to learn!!). Rimes are the letters after the onset that contain a vowel and final consonants.
In other words, they are both the building blocks of words. Once your learners know their letter sounds and are introduced to digraphs and blends, they can use onsets and rimes to sound single syllable words out.
The Importance of Rimes and Onsets
You’re probably thinking, “Ok..two more terms I need to know…what’s the importance of them, though?” Like mentioned before, they are the building blocks of words. Rimes and onsets help your learners understand word families. When your learners know word families, they know how to change c-at to b-at to h-at.
Your learners will understand digraphs and blends by breaking these one syllable words into onset and rimes as well.
Onset and Rime Holiday Word Building
It’s around this time of year where your students are at the next steps of reading. My onset and rime holiday word building is a great way to keep your students learning but bring excitement to the holiday season.
Use this activity in small groups to introduce breaking words down to read or put into a literacy station for your more advanced students. This FREE resource comes with onset, rime and picture cards. There is a recording sheet as well for a quick assessment! To grab this FREE onset and rime holiday word building resource, click the download link below!
Don’t stop there with the holiday themed activities! To fill your lesson plans with more holiday fun, grab my Christmas Thematic Unit!