Alphabet Fluency Fun
"The Ship is Loaded" Rhyming Game
To play the rhyming game, “The Ship is Loaded”, one person begins the game, by saying,
“The ship is loaded with cheese.”
The next person repeats the sentence and adds a word that rhymes with cheese.
“The ship is loaded with cheese and peas.”
Each person adds another word that rhymes with cheese while reciting the ever-longer sentence.
“The ship is loaded with cheese and peas and bees.”
This game ends when no one can think of another rhyming word.
You can then start again with a different word to rhyme, such as,
"The ship is loaded with logs."
Each person adds a word to the sentence that rhymes with “logs,” such as hogs, dogs, frogs, etc. until no one can think of another rhyming word.
"Clap and Count Words" Game
Start the game by reading or saying a phrase or sentence.
Start with simple sentences. (The dog is barking)
Ask your child to repeat the phrase while clapping once for each word.
Repeat the phrase together, while counting the number of words.
Understanding that sentences are broken into individual words is a key in understanding the structure of our language.
"Clap and Count Syllables" Game
Similar to the Clap and Count Words in a sentence game above, start the game by reading or saying a word with more than one syllable.
Ask your child to repeat the word while clapping once for each syllable in the word.
Repeat the word together, while counting the number of syllables.
Once they get the hang of it, there are many fun words children like to segment into syllables: mo-tor-cy-cle, wat-er-mel-on, hip-po-pot-a-mus, etc...