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All About Teaching Reading & Writing
Taxonomy
Skill Explainer

3.2 Explicitly Teaching Onset-Rime

Onset-Rime Skill Explainer

Tami Mount, M. Ed.
The Simple View of Reading

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

Syllables

(active)Onset-Rime

Phonemic Awareness

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

Phonics Patterns

Common letter combinations found in words.

Short Vowels Skill Explainer
Closed Syllables Skill Explainer
Glued Sounds Skill Explainer
Open Syllables Skill Explainer
Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k' Skill Explainer
Consonant Digraphs Skill Explainer
Blends Skill Explainer
‘-ck’ Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
‘y’ as a Vowel Skill Explainer

Coming soon.

    Magic 'e' Skill Explainer
    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
          '-dge' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
          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

                  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.

                  Kindergarten teacher demonstrates onset rime using colored squares

                  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.

                  1. Tell students it is now their turn to try some words with you.
                  2. 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.

                  1. Tell students, “Now it’s your turn.”
                  2. 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.
                  3. 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)

                  Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.