Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness refers to the broad skill of recognizing and manipulating parts of oral language such as words, syllables, onsets and rimes, and phonemes. The interventions and activities presented in this module are used with students with a skill deficit in phonological awareness that can be determined by using the assessment used in the How to Determine Skill Deficit module.
Click on the video to hear literacy expert and president of Literacy Dr. Margie Gilis define phonological awareness.
Phonological Awareness is often referred to as an umbrella term covering all of the sub skills under it. Click on the image to the right to view an infographic of the umbrella. Notice all of the skills that come together under the term.
Phonological awareness interventions are generally not needed with older struggling readers. However, if you would like to see some examples click on the image to the left to download a hyperlinked document containing activities listed from the easiest skill to the most difficult.
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is the most advanced phonological awareness skill. Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to identify and manipulate individual speech sounds referred to as phonemes. Phonemic awareness develops in stages with phoneme manipulation at the top of the hierarchy. Phoneme manipulation refers to the ability to add, delete and substitute phonemes in words. This skill is a necessary precursor to fluent reading (Kilpatrick, 2015; Moats, 2020).
Click this link to see
examples of phonemic
awareness activities
Deletion
Substitution
Addition
This page introduced phonological and phonemic awareness and activities that can be used with students that have a skill deficit in the area of phonological and/or phonemic awareness. The research available goes well beyond what has been given to you on this page. If you would like to learn more about the research behind the practice, we have provided material for further study for you to explore. The material for further study is not all-encompassing but will give you a deeper look into the science behind reading. You can access these resources by clicking on the link in this paragraph or by clicking the additional resources tab at the top of any page on this site.
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Once you have completed all sections above, click the "Next" button at the bottom of the page to continue to the following page: Phonics. This next page will explain phonics in more detail and provide activities for students that may have a skill deficit in the area of phonological and/or phonemic awareness.