
What is phonological awareness?
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of sentences and words. It is comprised of word awareness, syllable awareness, onset and rime awareness, rhyme awareness and finally phonemic awareness. Word awareness is the understanding that sentences are made up of individual words and rhyme awareness is the ability to hear, recognize and play with rhyming words. Syllable awareness is understanding that words can be divided into chunks of sound and onset and rime awareness is understanding that words can be broken down into smaller sections of sound. Phonemic awareness is a critical subset to phonological awareness.
What is phonemic awareness?
Phonemic awareness refers to the specific ability to focus on and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes-the smallest units comprising spoken language). A learner who is phonemically aware is able to isolate and manipulate, blend and segment sounds into spoken or written words. The main focus is on phonemes or sounds is strictly on oral language. Students work with manipulating the sounds in words and the skills can be broken down into 8 categories (according to Heggerty): rhyming, onset fluency, blending, isolating final and medial phonemes, segmenting, adding, deleting and substituting. These awareness skills lead into the early literacy skills like alphabet knowledge and language awareness.
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of sentences and words. It is comprised of word awareness, syllable awareness, onset and rime awareness, rhyme awareness and finally phonemic awareness. Word awareness is the understanding that sentences are made up of individual words and rhyme awareness is the ability to hear, recognize and play with rhyming words. Syllable awareness is understanding that words can be divided into chunks of sound and onset and rime awareness is understanding that words can be broken down into smaller sections of sound. Phonemic awareness is a critical subset to phonological awareness.
What is phonemic awareness?
Phonemic awareness refers to the specific ability to focus on and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes-the smallest units comprising spoken language). A learner who is phonemically aware is able to isolate and manipulate, blend and segment sounds into spoken or written words. The main focus is on phonemes or sounds is strictly on oral language. Students work with manipulating the sounds in words and the skills can be broken down into 8 categories (according to Heggerty): rhyming, onset fluency, blending, isolating final and medial phonemes, segmenting, adding, deleting and substituting. These awareness skills lead into the early literacy skills like alphabet knowledge and language awareness.
Useful Videos
Please watch the videos below. They will provide some examples on how you could approach phonemic or phonological awareness in your classroom.