Onset Rime



Activity for ages 5 to 6.

CVC onset rime puzzles are a fun way to help beginning readers learn how to recognize common chunks in words such as “at” and “ip”. These print and play puzzles make an awesome addition to a literacy center, word work station or guided reading group.

Getting Ready

An alternative to teaching spelling rules is using onset and rime. Breaking down syllables into onset (the part of the syllable before the vowel) and rimes (the part of the syllable including the vowel onwards) may be useful to help students process syllables. What is onset/rime? An onset is the consonant or consonant blend at the beginning of a word that precedes the first vowel. It can be one, two, or three letters long. In the word cat, the onset is c. In the word flat, the onset is fl. In the word splat, the onset is spl. A rime begins with the first vowel and continues to the end of the syllable.

To prep for the activity, I began by printing the cards (below) on cardstock to give them extra durability. Then I cut along the lines to separate the pieces and ran them through my laminator for added strength.

Puzzle Time

First, I modeled how to break a CVC word into an onset and rime.

Using “cat” as an example, I slid together both halves of the puzzle as I said the word slowly – emphasizing the onset “c” and the rime “at”.

The kids practiced saying “cat – /c/ /at/” with me and then they worked in pairs to solve the rest of the puzzles in the set. Each time they found a match, I had them say the onset and rime separately and then slide the halves together as they said the whole word. The hands-on action was a great visual for teaching their brain how to combine parts of words together.

The kids in my class loved solving the puzzles and the activity became a fast favorite at our word work station!

Grab Your Set

Click the blue button below to download your free set of the CVC onset rime puzzles and then hop over and snag our Word Family Activity Pack for more CVC fun!

As we learn to read, word recognition plays an important part in our literacy journey. Automatic word recognition is essential for fluent reading. We need to be able to recognise words quickly to be able to read quickly. However, word recognition isn’t just taught via whole words. One of the ways we learn to automatically recognise words is by decoding them. Decoding helps us to memorise words so that they become automatically recognised words eventually. Decoding is also an important skill for early readers as it helps them to figure out words they don’t know.

Word families or onset rime is a common tool in word level literacy instruction that can help students to learn to decode. Sturm et al (2006) reported that the large majority of first grade teachers in mainstream classrooms do onset rime based activities in their classrooms at least 3 times a week and that in third grade classrooms onset rime still played an important role in teaching text decoding.

By teaching a learner one word from a word family (e.g. cat) and then teaching them how to generate other words in that same word family (e.g. bat, hat, mat) using the original word as a guide we are teaching them some very important skills in word generation.

Onset Rime Activities Pre K

Onset Rime has also been shown to be one of the most effective ways of improving phonological awareness (Adams, 1990). Phonological awareness is an important skill – it is what we use to hear sounds, syllables and words in speech. Without phonological awareness we cannot break words down and decode them to read unfamiliar words. We also find it extremely hard to re- code words to spell them. Therefore, phonological awareness is a very important skill in learning to read and write.

For learners with complex communication needs (CCN) onset rime can be a really valuable tool in helping them to hear sounds in words, just as it is with all other learners. And sometimes they may need more explicit instruction and practice to understand how useful it can be.

We can do lots of activities with word families. One of my favourite low technology options is just to print cards with one rime (e.g. ill) and all the different onsets. I then ask a learner to make different words for me using the cards. For example, “which letter do I need to add to ill to make pill?”. My simple document I use to make these cards up can be downloaded by clicking here. I use these cards nearly every week with different learners in different ways.

And you can see a video of me using them with a choice of two onsets below (and thanks to Rowan from Acacia Hill School for also being the video)

Onset

Onset Rime Units

We also need to make sure that as we teach this skill, we include one word for each word family on our word walls so that students can start to use those words independently to help them spell others. There are 37 common word families that we need to make sure that we include on our word walls and in our activities.

There are lots and lots of available resources for using onset rime as part of literacy instruction and I’ve listed some of my favourites below. I’d love to hear some of yours too.

Onset rime/Word family activities and resources

Onset Rime Video

  • Boardmaker Studio has fabulous templates for doing onset rime activities. You can also download some pre-made ones from the Spectronics Activity Exchange Set 1, Set 2 and Set 3. And (continuing the Boardmaker theme) there are a small number of activities available on Boardmaker Achieve – just do a search to find them.
  • The fabulous Learning Grids for Clicker 6 and the other Crick applications has some pre-made onset rime activites in the Phonological Awareness category. There are also some Clicker compatible ones on the Spectronics Activity Exchange for the at word family and the eat word family.
  • Tar Heel Reader also has a small number of books tagged with onset rime or with word families – but you can also find many more by looking through.
  • Many children’s picture books have a focus on onset rime. The Cat in the Hat by Dr Suess or Boo to a Goose by Mem Fox & David Miller are both good examples of this.
  • There are lots of resources to be found both through Google and Pinterest. Don’t forget to search for both “onset rime” and “word families” as many resources are saved under one or the other.
  • The Accessible Word Reading Intervention site is getting old but is aimed at teaching this skill to adults who are early readers and writers.
  • There are also a number of apps that we can use to practice onset rime. For example, Word Wall has some nice onset rime activities for beginning learners to play and experiment with. Or you could make your own onset rime activities in Abilipad or use some of the pre-made ones available in the Abilipad Library.

Onset Rime Nucleus Coda

References
Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Sturm, J., Spadorcia, S., Cunningham, J., Cali, K., Staples, A., Erickson, K., et al. (2006). What happens to reading between first and third grade? Implications for students who use AAC. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 22(1), 21–36.

Wylie, R.E. & Durrell, D.D. (1970). Teaching vowels through phonograms. Elementary English, 47, 787 – 791.

Onset Rime Activities

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