"I am thinking of an animal that rhymes with big. What's the animal?" (Answer: pig) What else rhymes with big? (dig, fig, wig) (Resource: Reading Rockets)

Rhyme Memory Match (printable) - Florida Center for Reading Research

Alliteration or "tongue ticklers" - where the sound you're focusing on is repeated over and over again - can be a fun way to provide practice with a speech sound. Try these:

For M: Miss Mouse makes marvelous meatballs!

For S: Silly Sally sings songs about snakes and snails.

For F: Freddy finds fireflies with a flashlight.

(Resource: Reading Rockets)

Word families are sets of words that rhyme. Start to build your family by giving your child the first word, for example, cat. Then ask your child to name all the "kids" in the cat family, such as: bat, fat, sat, rat, pat, mat, hat, flat. This will help your child hear patterns in words. (Resource: Reading Rockets)

While at the grocery store, have your child tell you the syllables in different food names. Have them hold up a finger for each word part. Eggplant = egg-plant, two syllables. Pineapple = pine-ap-ple, three syllables. Show your child the sign for each and ask her to say the word. (Resource: Reading Rockets)