Kumon My Book Of Rhyming Words Ages 4-6 (Kumon Workbooks)

Excellent preparation for early readingThe skill of sounding out words is critical to learning to read and write. This skill is not as easy to learn as many adults think. One needs to be able to recognize the sound value of letters instantly, and be able to blend those sounds to put together words, or for writing, to decompose the spoken words into sounds and letters. Used according to the instructions, this book provides an excellent primer for those skills, and thus an excellent introduction to word reading.Before starting this book, the child should be familiar with the lowercase alphabet and with the sounds - not just the names - associated with the letters. It is okay if letter recognition still requires a second or two of thought or is not always accurate, as the practice in this book will help make that recognition fluent. Children who are not familiar with the alphabet may wish to start with the preceding book in the Kumon preschool English series,  My First Book of Lowercase Letters , or with the book before that,  My First Book Of Uppercase Letters (Kumon Workbooks) .To make the learning process as easy as possible, the words in this Rhyming Words book are composed of a single leading consonant with its most common sound, followed by a short vowel, followed finally by a single final consonant with its most common sound. Because the spellings of all the words in the book are regular, the student does not get confused with different sounds for the same letter or different letters for the same sound.The book uses 52 three letter words. These words use all five of the short vowels, and use fifteen of the most common consonants. The letters j, k, and y are excluded, likely because of potential confusion with uses of g, c, and i for some of the same sounds, and q, v, and x are excluded likely because of rarity of occurrence in three letter words.After a review of the alphabet, the words are presented in groups of four, with each group of four words rhyming so that the child can focus on formation of different words by varying only the initial letter of the word. For each group of four words, there are four workbook pages: first a page that introduces the four words using associated pictures; then a page where the four pictures and associated words are presented in random order to be recited, three times; then a page where each of the four words in the group are traced, three times, with progressively lighter tracing guides; and finally a page where each of the four words in the group are traced twice with even lighter tracing guides and then written once without a tracing guide.On each page where a word is written, the word is spoken once, then the sounds of the individual letters are made as each letter is written. This reinforces the relationship between the sound of each letter and its corresponding shape in a way that highlights how words can be broken down into those individual sounds.There are at least two groups of four words for each short vowel. After all the words for a short vowel have been covered, there is a pair of review pages for each two groups of words. On the first review page of the pair, each of the two groups of four rhyming words is presented with associated pictures, in an order to be recited. On the second review page, each of the eight words is written once. As before, the word is recited before it is written, and the sound of each letter is made each time that letter is written.At the end of the book are a series of additional review pages, again with each pair of review pages covering two groups of four words each. The first page of the pair requires the child to trace his way through a grid of words by following the path made by one group of rhyming words and ignoring words from the second group. On the second page, each of the eight words from the two groups is written once after reciting the word, again with each letter sound made as the letter is written.The specific pages of the book are as follows:First, two pages reviewing the alphabet. On each of these pages, the child traces all the letters of the alphabet, in lowercase, in order. On the first page, there is a strong tracing guide; on the second page, there is a barely visible tracing guide.Then, four groups of four rhyming words each are presented, all with "a" as the vowel, for a total of 16 pages. There are then 4 pages of review for these words.Then, two groups of four rhyming words each are presented, both with "e" as the vowel, for a total of 8 pages, followed by 2 pages of review.Then, three groups of four rhyming words each are presented, all with "i" as the vowel, for a total of 12 pages, followed by 4 pages of review. The words ending in "ig" - "pig", "wig", "dig", "big" - appear in both pairs of review pages.Then, two groups of four rhyming words each are presented, both with "o" as the vowel, for a total of 8 pages, followed by 2 pages of review.Then we get to the "u" words, again with two groups of four rhyming words each being presented, for a total of 8 pages plus 2 review pages.Finally, 12 additional review pages cover all groups of four rhyming words presented - except for the words ending in "ig", which having already appeared in two pairs of review pages.In total, each of the 52 words presented is written 8 times and spoken a similar number of times, for a total of 416 written word repetitions and 1248 written letter repetitions, over the course of 80 workbook pages.I first used this book with my older son, when he was 5. I sat by him when he worked on the book, to encourage him, help him figure out words where the picture was ambiguous, and to make sure he followed the instructions by sounding out the words and letters as he wrote them. By the end of the book, his association of letters with sounds was reliable, he understood how the sounds fit together to make up a word, and he was starting to be able to identify words from the letters, and not just from the pictures. He did need additional practice, which was provided by the subsequent book in the series,  My Book Of Rhyming Words And Phrases (Kumon Workbooks) ; after going through that book, he could sound out and identify three letter words reliably. Now, at 6, he can read simple texts and sound out most words.I later used this book with my younger son starting when he was 3 year 7 months and finishing shortly after his fourth birthday, with similar results. He is now about half way through the subsequent book and is likely to be able to reach simple texts by the time he starts school at age 5.As with all Kumon workbooks, this book is self paced, with a gentle progression. The progression in this book may seem minimal, but in the context of the Kumon preschool English workbook sequence, there is a strong, thorough progression, starting with hand eye coordination skills, then with letter formation and sounding, then with the word sounding in this and the following workbook, and finally progressing through more complex words, phrases, and sentences, ultimately to a child who is ready to read and write.

Presents reading and writing practice for short vowel sounds. Some examples are -at, -en, -op, ug. The reading is done with individual words. And writing practice is focus on letters in relation to each other and shape rather than guidelines. It is a different method than the guidelines at school to be sure, but some students may find it helpful. Students use touch the word and read focusing on the recognizing target sound and letter combinations.

Research shows that if a child has trouble rhyming then they will have trouble reading. Therefore, I bought this book to prepare my son with rhyming. I am familiar with all the Kumon books so I wanted to try the Kumon method first. This book not only helps with rhyming, but it helps your child learn how to read and spell. Example are words ending in at : cat, hat, rat. Then an: fan, man, ran, etc.. I practiced each lesson of words using movable alphabets. I did this for about two days then the third day I allowed my son to practice in the book. He is five years old and capable of writing letters. After reviewing. Within a week my son was able to spell the words verbally and write them. This is definitely a must buy if you are starting to teach your child to read.

My granddaughter is a 1/4 of the way through this rhyming workbook. She liked the Kumon mazes, so I purchased the rhyming workbook. It’s a good learning workbook for reading and spelling. I suggest buying this workbook for a PreK or Kindergarten student.

These books are great. My daughter enjoys them and the worksheets help me supplement my homeschooling curriculum. I know my daughter is improving her skills because she works through the questions in this book and other Kumon Publishing books. I highly recommend them to parents who want to supplement their children's education.

Really awesome. I feel like my 5yo caught on after the first set of 3 letter rhymes and writing and reading her own words. This is a very effective teaching tool. Just amazing. She should be ready for kindergarten after a summer with these books.

My 6 year old daughter loves to work in this book. She loves knowing exactly what she has to do and I like that I do not have to give her directions every minute. My daughter's class was learning how to read 3 letter words and she was just not getting it. After a few days of doing a few pages a day she learned how to read 3 letter words. We are both so thankful for this book.

My sons love it! They actually wanted to do more! Thank you for taking the guess work out of summer education! I am just copying them on my scanner and letting them go write on that instead of the books.The books are very high quality and delivery was quick and painless!

New, excellent, daughter half way through

Buen libro para primer contacto. Son palabras simples en ingles con una sola vocal fàciles de pronunciar para primeras palabras de lectura. Yo lo estoy utilizando para mi hijo de 5 años y me va genial. todas las paginas son iguales pero cambiando las palabras. empiezan primero con una hoja de relacionar en flechas, luego pasa a otra con un camino a seguir donde el niño debe leerlas al mismo tiempo que riegue el camino y dos jonás más donde escribe las palabras una vez hecho esto pasa a las siguientes hojas donde es exactamente lo mismo pero con otras palabras. Esta muy bien y aprenden mucho vocabulario. Lo recomiendo.

My three-year-old daughter loved this book and zipped through it. She could say the letter sounds individually, but had trouble connecting it with words. This book did exactly what it was supposed to, and it taught her about rhymes. She didn't have any difficulty with it at all. I'm always amazed by these Kumon books. I feel like every parent should get these for their kids.

I just loved this book. My son was not engaging in learning rhyming words and then I saw this online and ordered it without giving a second thought. I loved it. It has a lot for practice. I m happy with results of my son

very practical