Phonological Awareness

Foundational Skills

• Phonological awareness: the awareness of and ability to work with sounds in spoken language

  • “Print” is not attached to phonological awareness skills as it is all auditory and oral

  • “Eyes closed or lights off” is a reminder that phonological awareness activities can be done without sight because it does not include print

• Phonological awareness if a prerequisite for decoding and encoding

  • The goal is to support students’ development of phonemic awareness

• Phonological Awareness includes knowing:

  • Sentences can be segmented into words

  • Words can be segmented into syllables

  • Words can be segmented into their sounds

  • The individual sounds of words can be blended

  • The individual sound of words can be manipulated

• Syllables are an unbroken single vowel sound within a word

  • It typically contains only on vowel, and if there are two, one of the vowels is silent

• Onset is the first initial phonological sound of a word whereas the rime is the string of letters that follow the onset

  • Onset and rime are only based on sounds

Terminology

• Phonology is the study of the basic sound units of language

• Phonemes are individual speech sounds

• Graphemes are individual letters or groups of letter that represent phonemes

• Phonemic Awareness is the understanding that words can be broken down into individual phonemes (sounds)

• Isolation, blending, segmenting, and manipulation (addition, deletion, and substitution) are activities that promote phonemic awareness

• Phonics instruction is the step-by-step process of teaching the alphabetic principle

  • Focuses on teaching the consistent, predictable sounds connected to letters

Skill Progression

• To teach phonological awareness a teacher must:

  • Link sounds to letters early

  • Provide explicit and systematic instruction that focuses on only 1 or 2 phonemic awareness skills at a time

  • Use classroom-based instructional assessments to provide ongoing feedback that guides your instruction

• Ways to build phonological awareness include:

  • Listening- reading aloud to children and asking questions

  • Rhyming- have children pick out rhyming words in books without help

  • Syllables- clapping out the “beats” of syllables

  • Guessing games- “I spy” games

  • Sing- rhyming songs

  • Blend sounds- putting sound units (phonemes) together

    Take words apart- have children work on hearing a word and then taking it apart

Assessment Tools

• Observation

  • Teachers can identify their strengths and areas in need of improvement

• Screening and Diagnostic Assessments

  • Screening assessments focus on specific aspects of phonological awareness while diagnostic assessments cover a wide range of phonological awareness and decoding skills

• Cultural and Linguistic Awareness

  • Be cognizant of the languages and dialects spoken by students, ensuring that assessment practices are inclusive and respectful of their backgrounds

• Informed Instruction

  • Offer support where students need it most

• Intervention Resources

  • Specialists can help with disorders

Research-Supported Instructional Strategies