By TONI WILCOX, Project READ

April showers bring May flowers. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Old sayings and nursery rhymes are important tools in building your child’s early reading skills. While reading to children every day is important, no matter what you enjoy reading together, rhymes help your child detect differences in the sounds that make up words. Researchers call this phonological awareness.
Here are some tips to help your young child play with sounds in words and make learning to read easier.
• Help your child create silly sentences like “Katie kissed kangaroos.”
• While reading a rhyming book, point out the words that sound alike to your preschooler.
• Sing favorite songs and read nursery rhymes repeatedly.
• Play “I Spy.” If you want your child to find a teddy bear say, “I spy something that rhymes with pear.” Or use the beginning letter and sound, “I spy something that starts with B, like baby.”
• Replace the beginning sounds of words with another sound. For example if your preschooler wants a “banana,” you could say, “Did you want a fanana?” See if he corrects your mistake.
By creating personal connections to words and sounds you are reinforcing what your child is learning or will learn at preschool or school.