I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books. The Rhyming Rabbit loves to make up entertaining poems, inspired by everything he sees, but the other rabbits don’t appreciate his talent for rhyme. Sad and lonely, the Rhyming Rabbit sets off one starry night all on his own – will he ever find someone to share his poems with? My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes. This makes this reading strategy, specifically directing a child to focus on finding rhymes, especially powerful. Using this strategy can help them make connections between other word patterns and ultimately make them much more fluent readers.

I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him). However, his books aren’t just fun to read. They are also extremely important as a beginning reading resource as they contain something incredibly helpful for young readers. In the burrow he meets a worm and a mole but they too don’t appreciate his rhymes. It’s not until he digs his way out of the earth and into a field where he meets a friendly sheep that he finally finds a friend who likes rhymes as much as he does. The Rhyming Rabbit and the sheep spend the whole night and the next day making up new rhymes together. When he has to leave, the Rhyming Rabbit vows to return again the next day to see his new friend. I think this book would be a good book to read aloud to children in the early years and lower key stage one. There is a simple repetitive rhyme while the rabbit is digging the tunnel which allows for whole class participation and children to engage with poetry. In addition to this, the book could also be used to aid the learning of different animals in the early years. In fact a study from the Center for Early Literacy Learning showed that there was a strong correlation particularly with nursery rhyme experience and stronger phonological skills early on.However, because Chunky Monkey lead them to look for word chunks throughout the words, they often ignored the simplest and most obvious possibility – making the connection with the end of the word and using a rhyme. This book is the story of a rabbit who likes to make up poems about his surroundings and events that happen to him. Unfortunately for him, none of his family or friends appreciates his rhymes. They find it annoying when he recites his poetry aloud as they try to sleep so the Rhyming Rabbit decides to dig himself a long burrow and set off on a night time adventure, reciting poetry as he goes. Rhyming Rabbit is a reading strategy that teaches young readers to think about words that end similar to another word and potential rhymes to help them decode the word.

I then introduce them to our strategy, Rhyming Rabbit and discuss how he can be useful when reading. We look at several short sentences and identify words for which we know rhymes. For example: The ball rolled to a stop. We look at the word stop and discuss words we know that rhyme with stop and how they could help us decode the word stop if we didn’t already know it. We practice this with several other sentences. His books are in fact, partially the inspiration behind this next reading strategy that does not typically appear on classroom walls. While this strategy is similar to Chunky Monkey, the important part is that it forces children to focus on the word endings instead of scanning the word looking for chunks that may occur earlier on and not be as useful in decoding the word.

Want to save more time

Did you know that the ability to rhyme can be an early predictor of whether or not a child can read? Whether or not they can rhyme. As you read these books with your child (or have them read them to you), be sure to take note of and discuss the rhyming words in the book and how they are useful in decoding unknown words.

I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married. Rhyming Books Dr. Seuss books are the perfect resource for this strategy. There are a plethora of other rhyming books as well, but none that have been quite as successful as resonating through the ages. Rhyme Battles For this you’ll need to set a timer for say, 15 seconds. Give your child a word and have them tell you as many words as they can think of that rhyme with that word. You will record them on a whiteboard. Then you will trade of and you will choose a diferent word and do the same. The winner is the person who thought up the most rhymes. Match it – rhymes This is a simple and fun way to practice rhymes. On index cards, write a series of rhyming words. Do not repeat endings so as to make sure there aren’t multiple options for matches. For example, only include one set of rhymes that ends in at – like that and sat. I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs.

Find a Scheme of Work

His books contain casts of colorful characters and tongue twisting tales of fun and imagination. His silly antics have been bringing giggles to home for decades. For the purposes of this game I create about 10 pairs. The objective of the game is to find the corresponding matches and correctly read them. To introduce this strategy, I begin with the book, The Rhyming Rabbit. This is a story about a lonely rabbit with an affinity for creating poems. None of the other animals in the forest appreciate his rhymes, until one night he meets a friendly sheep who loves to rhyme too. His books can also instill confidence in young readers as many of them heavily rely on short rhyming words and can easily be decoded once a child has a solid understanding of the concept of rhyme.