Word hunts in nursery rhymes: how many times does star appear?

Every kindergartner knows Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Almost none of them have ever looked at the word “star” on a page while saying it. A word hunt puts a rhyme they know by heart in front of them in big type and asks one question that makes them read it: how many times does “star” appear?

What the sheet looks like

The word hunt generator prints one of sixteen traditional nursery rhymes in large print, from Humpty Dumpty and Jack and Jill to Hickory Dickory Dock and Hot Cross Buns. Under it come two, three or four questions, each naming a word from the rhyme. The child circles every one in the text, counts them, and circles the right number from three choices. You can pick the rhyme or let the sheet choose a different one each time, and the answer key underlines every hit so you are not counting yourself.

Why it works

• The child already owns the words by sound, so this is matching print to speech they know. That is how whole-word recognition starts for most children.
• Hunting one word through six lines is a tracking exercise: left to right, line to line, without losing the place.
• Counting and then choosing from three numbers makes the sheet self-checking. If none of the three matches your count, you missed one.

Who it suits

Kindergarten to second grade. For a first grader, two questions on a rhyme they do not know is more interesting than four on one they do. It only covers the words that happen to be in sixteen rhymes, so it is not a sight-word program; it is a reason to look at text. For the words they are actually learning, sight word practice is the follow-on.

Read the rhyme aloud once more at the end, with the circled words said louder than the rest.