Phonological awareness is the ability to manipulate the structure of an utterance independently from its meaning. According to the National Center of Education and the Economy, “Children who readily develop phonemic awareness in kindergarten will probably learn to read easily” (Goldsworthy, 2001). Phonological awareness skills develop from syllable to onset-rime, to phoneme.
These skills begin at age 3:0 and continue through the development of early reading skills at ages 6:0 and 7:0
Syllable Segmentation
- the ability to count the number of syllables in a word
- “How many syllables do you hear in butterfly?”
Syllable Blending
- the ability to blend syllables into a word after they are given separately
- “What word do you hear when I say cow…boy?”
Rhyming
- the ability to identify words that sound alike or rhyme
- “Which word rhymes with mat; star or hat?”
Phoneme Isolation
- the ability to identify whether a given sound occurs at the beginning, middle or end of a word
- “In the word sun, is the /s/ at the beginning, middle, or end of the word?”
Initial Alliteration
- the ability to identify the last sound in a word
- “Which word begins with /t/; toad or boat?”
Final Alliteration
- the ability to identify the last sound in a word
- “Which word ends with /b/ dog or tub?”
Sound Blending
- the ability to blend sounds into a word after they are given separately
- What word do you hear when I say /b/…/a/…/t/?
Sound Deletion
- the ability to delete a given sound from a word and says the new word
- “Say cup without the /k/ sound”
Sound Substitution
- the ability to replace a specified sound in a word and says the new word or syllable
- Say Top; now change /t/ to /h/
Sound-Grapheme Matching
- the ability to identify grapheme(s) associated with individual sounds
- “What letters say /k/”