Ch. 6 Onsets and Rimes

Notice Rhyme refers to sounds at the end of words

Rime refers to sound at the end of a syllable.

* Syllables in the English language are made up of Onsets and Rimes.

Onset = The part of the syllable that comes before the first vowel.

Rime = The rest of the syllable from the first vowel onward.

Some Examples:

Word / Onset / Rime
Bat / b / at
Bricks / br / icks
On / -- / on
Contact / c
t / on
tact

èKnowledge of onset and rime can help students by providing analogy words to help pronounce/read/spell many other words they encounter.

  If you can spell can, you can spell van, fan, man, etc.

  If you can spell smile and back you can spell smack.

Strategies for exploration

èModel the analogy strategy during minilessons and shared writing so students will see how it can be helpful in their independent work (other good opportunities are conferences and guided reading/writing).

  Introduce the word may and ask students to think of other words that may would you read and write.

o  Say, play, day, they, weigh

  List the words and group them by spelling pattern:

Say They Weigh

Play

Day

  Use different colors to distinguish the onset and rime portion of words.

  Call attention to the fact that the same sounds are represented by different spelling patterns.

  Students now have 3 different ways they can try to spell words with the same sound as may.

è During shared reading

  Select a word from the text and ask students to think of analogous words that share the same onsets and rimes.

o  Ex: if you have selected grade, students may think of other words that share the rime ade—fade, wade, trade,

  Students may be asked to create sentences or stories with words that share the same onset or rime.

  Think aloud using the analogy word strategy to problem solve a challenging word in the text.

èFor independent work

  Write a sentence on a sentence strip and cut the words into their onset and rimes.

o  For example, the sentence The roots made the seed crack would be cut into the-r-oots-m-ade-the-s-eed-cr-ack

  Mix up the sentence parts and have students reassemble.

  You can keep sentences like these in envelopes labeled with the entire sentence.

Classroom Chart

Strategies Good Spellers Use

  Listen for the sounds in the word

  Stretch the word out slowly

  Try to write it more than one way

  Think about what the word looks like

  Find the word in a book

  (Learn how to spell some words)

  (Try to spell unknown words)

  Do your best

Useful Lists on p68—71

Common Digraph Onsets
Common Blend Onsets
Common Rimes