Why is Rhyming Important for Early Literacy?

Rhyming is an important pre-reading skill for several reasons. One of them being, it’s  a predictive factor in reading success. That’s not to say that if your child is not good at rhyming as a preschooler or kindergartner that they won’t be good readers. Some research studies do show that as children’s reading skills improve, so does the ability to rhyme. Rhyming skills are a precursor to reading readiness as it helps children to understand and practice phonemic awareness (the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the smallest units of sound in a language).