3.2 Explicitly Teaching Onset-Rime
Onset-Rime Skill Explainer
Tami Mount, M. Ed.Word Recognition x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension
Assessment
The process of measuring students' progress and providing information to help guide instruction
(active)
Word Recognition
The ability to see a word and know how to pronounce it without consciously thinking about it
(active)
Phonological Awareness
A group of skills that enable you to recognize and manipulate parts of spoken words
Articulation
The production of speech sounds.
Articulation Skill Explainer
Syllables
Part of a word organized around a single vowel sound
(active)Onset-Rime
Two parts of a word: onset is the initial sound; rime is the vowel and any consonant sounds that follow it.
Phonemic Awareness
The ability to recognize and manipulate individual sounds within a spoken word
Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- Overview of Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- When to Teach Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- How to Teach Segmentation and Blending
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- Assessing Your Students
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Phoneme Segmentation & Blending
Phonics
A method for teaching children the relationship between spoken sounds and written letters so they can learn to decode and encode
Sound-Letter Correspondence
The relationship between a phoneme and the grapheme that spells it
Letter Names and Sounds Skill Explainer
- Overview of Letter Names and Sounds
- When to Teach Letter Names and Sounds
- How to Teach Letter Names and Sounds
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for Letter Names and Sounds
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Phonics Patterns
Common letter combinations found in words.
Short Vowels Skill Explainer
- Overview of Short Vowel Sounds
- When to Teach Short Vowel Sounds
- How to Teach Short Vowel Sounds
- Videos: See it in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for Teaching Short Vowels
- Student Practice Activities with Short Vowels
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Closed Syllables Skill Explainer
- Overview of Closed Syllables
- When to Teach Closed Syllables
- How to Teach Closed Syllables
- Lesson Plans for Teaching Closed Syllables
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Glued Sounds Skill Explainer
Open Syllables Skill Explainer
Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k' Skill Explainer
- Overview of Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- When to Teach Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- How to Teach Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- Lesson Plans for Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- Students Who Need Additional Support
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Consonant Digraphs Skill Explainer
‘-ck’ Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
- Overview of the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- When to Teach the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- How to Teach the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- Students Who Need Additional Support
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
- Overview of the FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule
- When to Teach the FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule
- How to Teach the FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for the FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- Students Who Need Additional Support
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
‘y’ as a Vowel Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Soft 'c' and Soft 'g' Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
R-Controlled Vowels Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Vowel Teams and Dipthongs Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
'-tch' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
- Overview of '-tch' Spelling Rule
- When to Teach '-tch' Spelling Rule
- How to Teach '-tch' Spelling Rule
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for '-tch' Spelling Rule
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
'-dge' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
- Overview of '-dge' Spelling Rule
- When to Teach '-dge' Spelling Rule
- How to Teach '-dge' Spelling Rule
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for '-dge' Spelling Rule
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Consonant '-le' Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Schwa Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words
High-frequency words that have a part of their spelling that has to be memorized
Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words
Multisyllable Words
Words that have more than one word part
Prefixes
How to add meaningful beginnings to words
Suffixes
How to add meaningful endings to words
Language Comprehension
The ability to understand the meaning of spoken words
Reading Comprehension
The ability to understand the meaning of printed text
Text Considerations
Characteristics of a text that impact the ease or difficulty of comprehension.
Strategies and Activities
How a reader approaches a specific text, depending on their purpose for reading
Reader’s Skill and Knowledge
The skills and knowledge a reader brings to the reading task that are necessary for comprehension
Sociocultural Context
Elements in a classroom that affect how well a child learns to read
Fluency
The ability to read accurately with automaticity and expression
Fluency: Accuracy, then Automaticity
Reading or decoding words correctly (accuracy) and reading at an appropriate rate (automaticity)
Accuracy, then Automaticity Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Fluency: Expressive Text Reading
Reading characterized by accuracy with automaticity and expression
Expressive Text Reading Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Writing
The act of putting thoughts into print using transcription and composition skills
Handwriting, Spelling, and Typing
Methods for translating speech into written words
Handwriting and Letter Formation Skill Explainer
Sentence Writing
Composing a complete statement, question, exclamation, or idea with proper grammar and punctuation
Writing a Simple Sentence Skill Explainer
Sentence Expansion Skill Explainer
- Overview of Sentence Expansion
- When to Teach Sentence Expansion
- How to Teach Sentence Expansion
- Video: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plan for Sentence Expansion
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Features of Structured Literacy
A systematic and explicit approach to teaching reading based on research
A Step-by-Step Onset-Rime Lesson
Now it’s time to teach! Here's a research-based approach that we recommend, with examples of language you could use if this is new to you. When teaching onset-rime, we begin by teaching students how to blend, and then we teach how to segment. This sample lesson teaches students solely how to blend onset-rime.
1. Review relevant prerequisite skills with your students.
First, review relevant skills that your students should know prior to learning about onset-rime. Review how to identify syllables in a word (syllable awareness). You can also review other previously taught skills that support the lesson, including how words are made up of speech sounds, segmenting words into syllables, and blending syllables.
2. Introduce them to the concept of onset-rime and define it explicitly.
You might say something like this, “In a one-syllable word, the first sound you hear is called the onset. This is the beginning consonant sound. After the consonant sound comes a vowel sound. The vowel and everything after it is called the rime. Together we call these two parts onset-rime.”
3. Tell your students what they'll be learning.
Next, you might explain, “We’re going to learn how to blend an onset and a rime together to make a word.”
Then, you'll use a gradual release approach — or I Do, We Do, You Do, to teach them the skill.
4. I DO: Model the new skill.
First, tell your children that “it’s my turn” and that it’s their job to watch and listen. Then model how to blend two parts of a word using the strategy Touch and Say.
Place a square-shaped piece of felt and a rectangular-shaped felt on the table side by side with a space between. Remember to place them for “mirror teaching” with the square on the student’s left and the rectangle on their right like in this picture.

To model this skill, provide students with an onset, such as /m/, followed by the rime, such as /ăt/.
Say the target word in its segmented form:
The word is /m/, /ăt/.
Repeat the word, this time elongating the onset:
/mmm/, /ăt/.
Tell the students to watch and listen as you blend the word.
Touch the square felt as you say /m/ (the onset).
Next, touch the rectangular felt as you say /ăt/ (the rime).
Push the square to meet the rectangle as you blend the word into:
/mmmăt/
Repeat the word:
The word is mat.
The mat by our door was muddy.
Mat.
Repeat this with guided practice using other words, such as make, top, sail, rip, and mom. The vowel can be short or long since you don't have to worry about spelling patterns complicating this phonological lesson.
5. WE DO: Invite your students to try blending onset and rime with you.
- Tell students it is now their turn to try some words with you.
- Dictate additional words to children — day, cape, best — and guide them in using felts to practice blending and segmenting the words with you.
6. YOU DO: Ask them to do the activity on their own, with your feedback.
- Tell students, “Now it’s your turn.”
- Continue presenting words for children to try independently. Call on individual students to practice. Ask other children to practice in their heads and be ready to help out if a friend needs it. Here are a few words for practice: ball, food, and mug.
- Provide support for any students who need it by modeling the correct answer and then having children independently repeat what you demonstrated.
Some students struggle with segmenting and blending onset-rime. This could be due to phonological challenges or being unable to retain the first sound in the word after retrieving the rime. These students may need to work at a slower pace and practice many repetitions to achieve mastery.
7. Next Steps
Once students are confident in blending onset-rime, the next task that students need to learn and practice is segmenting. We have a sample lesson plan on segmenting onset-rime (opens in new window)that follows the gradual release approach we modeled above.
When students catch on to the concept of onset-rime within words, they are ready to move on to phoneme identification. If you are unsure of your student's proficiency with this skill, you can use this quick assessment to check their progress. (opens in new window)