What is Phonological Awareness?

One of the 5 Pre-Reading Skills Kids Need To Be Successful Readers is Phonological Awareness. As teachers and parents, there are many ways that we can help our pre-readers develop phonological awareness skills in preschool and kindergarten and build that foundation for reading success.

 

Phonological Awareness

 

What is Phonological Awareness?

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the sounds in spoken words. It is auditory and does not involve words in print. Pre-readers who have phonological awareness skills can identify and make rhymes, clap the number of syllables in a word, and identify words with the same initial sounds such as “hair” and “happy.” These skills are important for children to know as they learn how to read and will make learning easier.

 

Phonological Awareness Skills

 

What are Phonological Awareness Skills?

Phonological awareness includes many important skills including:

 

Identifying Syllables– Your children can identify the number of syllables in a spoken word. If you say “cat,” your kids will clap once. If you say “dinosaur,” your children will clap three times. Your kids can also orally blend syllables. 

 

Recognizing Rhymes– Your children can recognize if words rhyme if you give them two words like “cat” and “bat.” They can also tell you a word that rhymes with the word that you give them. If you say the word “cat,” your kids can respond with words that rhyme such as “mat,” “bat,” and “sat.” 

 

Identifying Alliterations– Your children can recognize the same sound at the beginning words such as “Friday Fun Day” or “Wacky Wednesday.” More complex alliterations are “she sells seashells by the sea-shore” or “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

 

Blending Onset-Rimes– You children can blend onset-rimes orally such as “c-at” or “p-ond.”

 

Segmenting Initial  Sounds– Your children can identify the beginning sound in a word. If you ask your kids to say the first sound in “dog,” they will say the /d/ sound.

 

Segmenting Final Sounds– Your children can identify the ending sound in a word. If you ask your kids to say the last sound in “dog,” they will say the /g/ sound.

 

Blending Sounds– Your children can blend two or more phonemes into one word. If you say the sounds /d/ /o/ /g/, your kids will say the word “dog.”

 

Segmenting Sentences– Your children understand word boundaries. If you say “The dog is brown,” your kids can recognize that sentence is made up of four individual words.

 

Discriminating Sounds- Your children can recognize whether words or sounds are the same or different. If you say “dog and dog,” your kids will tell you that those two words are the same. If you say “dog and hog,” they will tell you that those two words are different. 

 

 

Why are Phonological Awareness Skills Important?

When children can hear the sounds in a word and recognize where the sounds are in the word, they are learning more about word parts and developing language skills. Being able to identify and manipulate the sounds of oral language will help your pre-readers develop the skills that they need to help them not only learn how to read but spell too.

 

Pre-Reading Skills: Phonological Awareness

 

Phonological Awareness is one of the 5 pre-reading skills that your preschoolers and kindergartners need in order to build the foundation for lifelong learning and reading success.

 

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Phonological Awareness

 

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Phonological Awareness is one of the 5 Pre-Reading Skills Kids Need To Be Successful Readers. Learn more about the other pre-reading skills: