What is Phonological Awareness?
The 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 and manipulate sounds
The ability to understand the relationship between written and spoken language
What is the Importance of Phonological Awareness?
Phonemic awareness skills are 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.
Phonological awareness skills are necessary and important for your child to develop reading readiness and is the foundation of reading. These skills are developed as a child starts to listen to, identify, and manipulate the sounds in oral language.
Types of Phonological Awareness Skills
Concept of spoken word – understanding the amount of words in sentences
Clap for each word you hear in this sentence, “Tom ran home.”
Rhyming – rhyming recognition, completion and productions
Do “said” and “soap” rhyme?
What rhymes with cake?
Syllable blending – when a child put parts/syllables of the word together
Pause between syllable what word is formed by these parts “rain – bow.”
Syllable segmentation – ability to clap out each syllable in a word
Clap for each syllable/part you hear in this word “fantastic.”
Syllable deletion – the ability to remove parts/syllables of words
Say the word “skateboard”, now say the word without “skate.”
Phoneme isolation of initial and final sounds – being able to identify the first/last sound of words
What is the first sound in the word “top”?
What is the last sound in the word “fill”?
Phonemic blending– blending individual sounds to make words
Put these sounds together to make a word: /ch/ /o/ /p/?
Phonemic segmentation– being able to state the sounds in words
What sounds do you hear in the word “lap”, /l/ /a/ /p/?
Phoneme deletion of initial and final sounds – the ability to delete sounds
Say “seat”, now say “seat” without the /t/ sound.
Adding phonemes – adding phonemes/sounds to different parts of a word
Say “ink” now add /s/ at the beginning of the word.
Phonemic substitution – the ability to replace the sound of a word with another sound
Replace the first sound in “pig” with /d/.
Signs your child is struggling with phonological awareness skills
Minimal interest in rhyming books and rhyming-based play/songs
Inability to remember repetitive, nursery rhymes
Unable to clap out syllables in words
Difficulty independently developing rhyming words in play
Cannot categorize words that sound the same
Unable to identify sounds in words and overall difficulty with sound-letter correspondence
Difficulty manipulating sounds in words
Demonstrates difficulty with literacy activities in school
How can our speech therapists help with phonological awareness?
If your child has difficulty with phonological awareness or phonics a SLP can evaluate and help your child develop reading readiness. The SLP will consider all prerequisite skills needed for literacy, including phonological awareness skills and develop an intervention plan that is individually-tailored to your child’s needs.