His books are in fact, partially the inspiration behind this next reading strategy that does not typically appear on classroom walls.

This book is the story of a rabbit who likes to make up poems about his surroundings and events that happen to him. Unfortunately for him, none of his family or friends appreciates his rhymes. They find it annoying when he recites his poetry aloud as they try to sleep so the Rhyming Rabbit decides to dig himself a long burrow and set off on a night time adventure, reciting poetry as he goes.Rhyme Battles For this you’ll need to set a timer for say, 15 seconds. Give your child a word and have them tell you as many words as they can think of that rhyme with that word. You will record them on a whiteboard. Then you will trade of and you will choose a diferent word and do the same. The winner is the person who thought up the most rhymes. Enjoy all the stories from Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks: Sharing a Shell, The Princess and the Wizard, The Rhyming Rabbit, The Singing Mermaid, Sugarlump and the Unicorn, Princess Mirror-Belle and the Dragon Pox, What the Ladybird Heard, What the Ladybird Heard Next and What the Ladybird Heard on Holiday. His books can also instill confidence in young readers as many of them heavily rely on short rhyming words and can easily be decoded once a child has a solid understanding of the concept of rhyme. Did you know that the ability to rhyme can be an early predictor of whether or not a child can read? Whether or not they can rhyme.

In the burrow he meets a worm and a mole but they too don’t appreciate his rhymes. It’s not until he digs his way out of the earth and into a field where he meets a friendly sheep that he finally finds a friend who likes rhymes as much as he does. The Rhyming Rabbit and the sheep spend the whole night and the next day making up new rhymes together. When he has to leave, the Rhyming Rabbit vows to return again the next day to see his new friend. However, because Chunky Monkey lead them to look for word chunks throughout the words, they often ignored the simplest and most obvious possibility – making the connection with the end of the word and using a rhyme. For the purposes of this game I create about 10 pairs. The objective of the game is to find the corresponding matches and correctly read them. One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading.This is because rhyming essentially teaches children how language works. Specifically, it introduces them to the rhythm of language and helps them to notice the patterns sounds make in words. While this strategy is similar to Chunky Monkey, the important part is that it forces children to focus on the word endings instead of scanning the word looking for chunks that may occur earlier on and not be as useful in decoding the word. This is another strategy I created for my students when I saw a need for it. I noticed students doing really well using beginning sounds as clues and even looking for chunks. To introduce this strategy, I begin with the book, The Rhyming Rabbit. This is a story about a lonely rabbit with an affinity for creating poems. None of the other animals in the forest appreciate his rhymes, until one night he meets a friendly sheep who loves to rhyme too.

I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books. The Rhyming Rabbit loves to make up entertaining poems, inspired by everything he sees, but the other rabbits don’t appreciate his talent for rhyme. Sad and lonely, the Rhyming Rabbit sets off one starry night all on his own – will he ever find someone to share his poems with? Match it – rhymes This is a simple and fun way to practice rhymes. On index cards, write a series of rhyming words. Do not repeat endings so as to make sure there aren’t multiple options for matches. For example, only include one set of rhymes that ends in at – like that and sat.My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes. His books contain casts of colorful characters and tongue twisting tales of fun and imagination. His silly antics have been bringing giggles to home for decades. In fact a study from the Center for Early Literacy Learning showed that there was a strong correlation particularly with nursery rhyme experience and stronger phonological skills early on. I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him).