What is Phonological Awareness?
Phonological awareness is a metacognitive skill that involves thinking about the sounds in words, the syllables in words, and the words that makeup sentences. Phonological awareness involves breaking apart words into sounds or syllables, putting sounds or syllables together to create words, and manipulating the sounds and syllables in words. It is important when working on phonological awareness to think about the sounds in the words and not the letters. For example, we spell gate with four letters G-A-T-E but we say gate with 3 sounds G-AY-T.
Why is Phonological Awareness Important?
Phonological awareness is an important skill for reading. This is the foundation of being able to decode words and ultimately read fluently. A diagnosis of dyslexia results from the breakdown or lack of phonological awareness skills.
The Hierarchy Explained
The hierarchy for learning and using phonological awareness skills allows us to build up our skills beginning with simple tasks and working up to more challenging and complex tasks. The following tasks are listed from most challenging to least challenging as pictured above in the hierarchy.
- Manipulation of Phonemes: changing or moving around the sounds in words to create a new word (“Replace the t sound in tuck with the d sound.”)
- Addition of Phonemes: adding a sound to create a new word (“Say nail with the s sound at the beginning.”)
- Deletion of Phonemes: removing a sound from a word to create a new word (“Say slip with the l sound.”)
- Segmentation of Phonemes: breaking apart a word into individual sounds (“What sounds make up the following word: pizza?”
- Blending of Phonemes: putting sounds together to generate a word (“What word do these sounds make: p…i….g?”)
- Identification of Phonemes: identifying the beginning, middle, or ending sound in a word (“What sound is at the beginning of the word soup?”)
- Deletion of Syllables: removing a syllable from a word to create a new word (“Say doghouse without dog.”)
- Segmentation of Syllables: breaking apart a word into syllables (“How many syllables are in the word potato?”)
- Blending Syllables: combining single syllables to generate a word (“What word do these sounds make: cow….boy?”
- Segmentation of Words in Sentences: breaking apart a sentence into words (“How many words are in the following sentence: I like to eat spaghetti?”
- Production of Rhyming Words: generating a rhyming word when provided a word (“What rhymes with cat?”)
- Discrimination of Rhyming Words: determining which words rhyme with each other (“Does cat rhyme with hat or dog?)
ETLC Is Your Best Resource for Understanding Phonological Awareness
Does your child seem to be struggling through the steps to phonological awareness? We can help! At Enrichment Therapy & Learning Center, we are your trusted partner in helping your child learn, grow, and succeed. We use proven approaches and methods to help your children with speech and language. Contact us today for a free screening and to learn more!
info@enrichmenttherapies.com
740 Community Drive, Unit A
North Liberty, IA 52317
319-626-2553
infodm@enrichmenttherapies.com
5530 West Pkwy, Suite 300
Johnston, IA 50131
515-419-4270
0 Comments