Rhyming

I remember from my daughter's early first grade days that there was a big focus on rhyming. But at the time I wondered why this was so important in first grade. As far as I was concerned, rhyming is relevant to writing rhyming poetry. It seemed unnecessary for first grade.

I have since read that rhyming is considered by some to be helpful for children learning how to read. But to me it seems like reading should come first and then rhyming. For instance, how does a child look at the words "red" and "said" and know that they rhyme unless the child can actually read the words. Also, although words like "bed" and "red" will probably appear to a child to rhyme, even if a child can't read the words, how does this help a child to actually read these words. I realize that the thought is that if the child knows the word "red" but not the word "bed", that through rhyming the child should know the word "bed." But this does not help children at all when the sounds are the same but the spellings are vastly different.

My daughter, for instance, brought home this terrible rhyming assignment in the first month or so that had words my daughter could not read at all and she was supposed to be able to pick out the rhyming words. It was the most horrendous and frustrating assignment for my daughter all year. And, she didn't learn anything from it, nor would I have expected her to.