Rhyme or Not? Tick If They Rhyme, Cross If They Don't

Eight picture pairs are laid out two across and four down on this Kindergarten rhyming-words page, and under each pair sit two circles, one with a tick and one with a cross. A guitar and a jar. A bun and a sun. A nail and a cake. A hand and a can. A log and a frog. A bat and a hat. A map and a truck. A sled and a boat. The child says both pictures out loud, decides whether the two words rhyme, and circles the tick or the cross. Four pairs rhyme and four do not. There is nothing to write and nothing to draw between the cards.

Recognizing a rhyme comes before producing one, and this page asks only for the recognition. The non-rhyming pairs are built so that they do not rhyme by any stretch — nail and cake share a long a but nothing after it, hand and can start alike and end differently — so a child who says the words slowly can hear the answer without help. A guitar and a jar rhyme on the stressed syllable, which is a good moment to show that rhyme lives at the end of a word. The teacher listens for both words being said; a child who circles the cross for map and truck without speaking may be right by luck.

The page prints on one sheet and can be done with a crayon. It is the entry point of the family: the 1st grade rhyme-and-write page asks the child to pick the rhyme from three pictures and write it, and the sort-the-rhymes page has the child write several words under a picture head. Use this one with children who are still learning what the word rhyme means.