How To: Bags of Rimes

• Lesson Objective: Recognize and use common rimes to build fluency and accuracy through orthographic mapping.

• Grouping:  Small-group

• Methodology: Students use baggies of targeted onsets and rimes to build words and syllables.

• Duration: 10-15 minutes

  
  

Rime Time, Part II

As mentioned in my Rime Drills post, working with rimes—rather than individual graphemes—has many benefits. It's important that we include both in our practice. Rimes reinforce pattern recognition and support orthographic mapping. By anchoring common rimes in memory, students more easily store and retrieve whole words. Once a rime is familiar, students only need to decode the onset (the initial sound), making unfamiliar words more accessible and speeds up decoding.  Therefore, knowledge of rimes reduces cognitive load. When students realize they can read and spell dozens of words by swapping out the onset (e.g., cat, hat, sat, flat), they gain a sense of mastery which improves confidence. The goal of "Bags of Rimes" is similar to "Rime Drills". What differs is the hands-on execution, described below.

🖍 How the Routine Works

During small group work, each student receives a Bags of Rimes recording sheet, which is differentiated for each phonological concept.

Sample recording sheet.

I often begin with a quick vowel pattern review as a warm-up, sneaking in some extra reinforcement before diving into the activity.

After the review, students use cards with onsets and rimes to build words. You can choose to include rimes only from the current unit or all learned patterns. Students work independently to generate as many words as possible within the allotted time.

It’s essential to check in with each student at least once during the activity. I always ask them to whisper-read a few of their words aloud. Without this step, some students focus only on assembling words, rather than actually decoding them. A quick check-in ensures they’re applying the alphabetic principle—not just playing with letters.

Sample onsets and rimes for our short vowel unit. Each student receives a set.

Check out the Interactive Unit Guides to see how this lesson fits within each unit. There, you’ll find links to the unit-specific Bags of Rimes handouts. I build these for each unit to both review and target our current phonological patterns.