What is Phonological Awareness?
- Awareness of sounds in a language
- Awareness of rhymes
- Awareness that sentences can be broken down into words, syllables, and sounds
- Ability to talk about, reflect upon, and manipulate sounds
- Understanding the relationship between written and spoken language
Phonological awareness consists of skills that typically develop gradually and sequentially through the late preschool period. They are developed with direct training and exposure.
What are Phonological Awareness skills?
• Detecting rhyme and alliteration (use of similar consonants)
• Identifying rhymes and words that start/end with the same sounds
• Segmenting words into smaller units, such as syllables and sounds, by counting them
• Blending separated sounds into words
• Understanding that words are made up of sounds represented by symbols or letters
• Manipulating sounds in words by adding, deleting, or substituting
For specific examples, go to the Hierarchy
Why are Phonological Awareness skills important?
*Prepare! Prevent!*
Phonological awareness skills:
• Lead to reading success
• Prevent reading deficits
• Lead to success with spelling
• Help children become aware of sounds in their language
Through phonological awareness, children learn to associate sounds with symbols and create links to word recognition and decoding skills necessary for reading.
According to Gillon (2004), “Phoneme awareness performance is a strong predictor of long-term reading and spelling success and can predict literacy performance more accurately than variables such as intelligence, vocabulary knowledge, and socioeconomic status” (p. 57).
Who benefits from Phonological Awareness instruction?
• All children learning to read! (preschool, kindergarten, and first grade)
• Children at risk for reading failure
- Have less experience and skill using the alphabet
- Due to decreased opportunities and exposure to reading
~ Limited access to books/libraries
~ Different family priorities/expectations of reading
~ Unaware of the benefits of reading to children
• Children with language delays
- Tend to also have reading disorders
• Children with articulation disorders
- Awareness of sounds leads to heightened awareness of correct speech productions
• Children with spelling disorders
- Research shows these students perform poorly on PA tasks
- Helps connect sounds to letters and recognize common spelling units within words
Phonological Awareness vs Phonemic Awareness
Phonological awareness is a broad term that includes rhymes, words, syllables, phonemes, and onsets/rimes. Therefore, phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that influences the meaning of a word (e.g., the word “school” has 4 phonemes /s k u l/).
Selected References
• Bourassa, D., & Treiman, R. (2001). Spelling development and disability: The importance of linguistic factors. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 32, 172-181.
• Carroll, J.M., Snowling, M.J., Hulme, C., & Stevenson, J. (2003). The development of phonological awareness in preschool children. Developmental Psychology, 39(5), 913-923.
• Cowan, W. E. & Moran, M. J. (1996). Phonological awareness skills of children with articulation disorders in kindergarten to third grade. Journal of Children’s Communication Development, 18(2), 31-38.
• Gillon, G.T. (2000). The Gillon Phonological Awareness Training Programme: An intervention programme for children at risk for reading disorder. University of Canterbury.
• Gillon, G.T. (2004). Phonological awareness: From research to practice. New York: Guilford Press.
• Hodson, B.W. (1994). Helping individuals become intelligible, literate, and articulate: The role of phonology. Topics in Language Disorders, 14(2), 1-16.
• Johnson, K. L., & Roseman, B. A. (2003). The source for phonological awareness. East Moline, IL: Linguisystems, Inc.
• Lundberg, I., Frost, J., & Peterson, O. (1988). Effects of an extensive program for stimulating phonological awareness in preschool children. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 263-284.
• Paul, R. (2007). Language disorders from infancy through adolescence: Assessment & intervention (3rd ed.). St. Louis: Mosby, Inc.
• Rack, J., Hulme, C., Snowling, M., and Wightman, J. (1994). The role of phonology in young children learning to read words: The direct-mapping hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 57, 42-71.
• Swank, L.K. (1999). Phonological awareness and the role of the speech language pathologists for meeting reading goals. Language Learning and Education, Division One Newsletter, May, 26-28.
• Torgensen, J., & Bryant, B. (1994). Phonological awareness training for reading. Austin, TX: ProEd.
• Virginia Department of Eduaction. (1998). Ideas and activities for developing phonological awareness skills. Retrieved from www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Instruction/Reading/findings.pdf