Chapter 3. Phonological Awareness

“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” – Victor Hugo

Phonological awareness is a foundational skill for children as it is one of the core components of reading, along with phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Consequently, preservice teachers must be prepared with strategies for facilitating phonological skills development in K-3 children.  State standards provide benchmark expectations and guidance for preservice teachers to plan activities that facilitate specific literacy skills development.

Iowa Core State Standards (Please check your state standards)

Phonological awareness falls under the foundational standards of literacy.

Iowa Core Standard for Phonological Awareness: Kindergarten Benchmark Expectations (RF.K.2)

Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

• Recognize and produce rhyming words.
• Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.
• Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.
• Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words.* (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/)
• Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.

Iowa Core Standard for Phonological Awareness: 1^st Grade Benchmark Expectations (RF.1.2)

Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

• Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.
• Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends.
• Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.
• Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).

A hum and productive clamor can be heard as children excitedly work in small groups with volunteers! Children are heard clapping the names of their favorite characters into syllables in one group; another group is seen playing a limerick rime game, while the third group is using their fingers to segment sounds of their favorite animals and then jumping over the number of spaces equal to the number of sounds in a word. All these indicate different ways the class is authentically engaged in building phonological awareness or awareness of sounds in the oral language!

Phonological awareness

Phonological awareness is a set of auditory skills related to hearing sounds in spoken language. It is an umbrella term indicating an awareness of:

• units of spoken sounds such as syllables, onsets, and rimes;
• individual sounds (phonemes) of the spoken language.

Phonemic awareness

Phonemic awareness is the ability to distinguish and manipulate phonemes. It consists of:

• identifying initial and ending sounds;
• identifying medial vowel sounds;
• substituting, adding, or deleting sounds to make new words;
• segmenting sounds;
• blending sounds.

What is the difference between phonological awareness and phonemic awareness?

Phonological awareness is a broader term encompassing awareness of larger and smaller spoken language units. It consists of manipulating both the larger units (syllables, onsets, and rimes) and smaller units (phonemes). Children may work on identifying syllables, onsets, rimes, and phonemes. For example, they may clap to syllables, say the rhyming word, or identify the beginning, medial, or ending sound.

Phonemic awareness falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness consists of distinguishing and manipulating the smallest units of spoken language (phonemes). In phonemic-awareness work, children can practice identifying and manipulating initial consonants, medial vowels, and ending phonemes, and segmenting, blending, and counting phonemes.

Why develop phonological awareness?

Phonological awareness is the most important predictor of early reading ability (Carroll et al., 2003). Cartwright and Duke (2019) used the metaphor of “driving” to show what happens during reading, and to “drive” home the importance of phonological awareness. They noted that phonological awareness skills are the tire treads that help the vehicle move forward on the road. Therefore, it is essential to focus on developing phonological awareness in preschool and early elementary children through various means, as listed below.

Assessing phonological awareness

Phonological awareness is assessed through tasks like the following:

• phoneme deletion: a phoneme is deleted from a spoken word, for example, /k/ from the cat.
• phoneme addition: a phoneme is added to a spoken word; for example, /d/ is added to love.
• phoneme substitution: a phoneme is substituted for another, for example, /m/ for /k/ in the cat.
• phoneme counting: tap the number of phonemes in the spoken word: /k/-/a/-/t/ (3).
• phoneme segmentation: break a word into its component phonemes: /k/-/a/-/t/.
• syllabication or dividing multisyllabic words into syllables: base-ball, choc-o-late.
• onset and rime segmentation in spoken words: c is the onset and at is a rime.
• rhyming words: cat and hat.

Theory of developmental progression of phonological awareness

Children’s developmental progression of phonological awareness occurs in 3 stages (Goswami & Bryant, 1990):

1. syllable awareness,
2. onset and rime awareness,
3. phoneme awareness.

Rhyme and alliteration are key in acquiring phonological awareness (Chard & Dickson, 1999). However, children first become aware of syllables in speech (Liberman, 1973). This is followed by the perception of onsets and rimes. Last comes their awareness of individual sounds. The ability to divide words into syllables develops before their ability to segment words into individual phonemes (Liberman et al., 1974).

Development among Dual Language Learners

Dual Language Learners’ (DLL) performance in one language directly correlates with their performance in the other, according to Cummins’ (1979) linguistic interdependence hypothesis. Therefore, strong first-language skills help children develop their second-language ones. Specifically, leveraging their native-language literacy and prior knowledge helps DLLs develop phonological awareness in the second language.

It should be noted that DLLs differ in their developmental progression by language and skill due to various factors (Lopez, 2012):

• similarities between the languages,
• degrees of proficiency in the languages,
• the quality of adult input,
• cultural expectations,
• verbal memory, and
• personality.

The implications for the facilitation of children’s developmental progression are as follows. Read rhyming books and invite parents to share read-aloud picturebooks from their cultures. Also, leverage the children’s native languages in playing rhyming games, clapping syllables, and breaking up words into onsets and rimes. Lastly, practice breaking words up into individual phonemes. Segmenting, blending, and counting phonemes usually come toward the end once children can produce rhyming words and are already aware of syllables, onsets, and rimes in spoken words.

Forty-four phonemes of the English language

The video below demonstrates 44 phonemes of the English language.

Phonological development strategies

Our phonological development strategies are based on the Iowa Core benchmark expectations.  Please refer to your state standards. The Iowa Core foundational standards for kindergarten focus on the following: demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes). The following tasks show the understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds.

Recognize and produce rhyming words

1. Read books with rhyming words.
2. Listen to lullabies and nursery rhymes.
3. Play rhyming games.
   1. Finger rhymes and jump rope rhymes are some ways to have fun while building phonological awareness!
   2. Have fun with rhyming riddles!
4. Use word families to create rhymes.
5. Do picture sorts with rhyming words.

Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words

• Move your body to count syllables to make it fun and engaging! Let’s Learn About Syllables | Jack Hartmann
• Play syllable games: Syllable games | classroom strategies
• Clap syllables in haiku poetry: Haiku poem interactive

Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words

1. Play the Chunks game with onsets and rimes to make new words. Break the onset and rime apart, and then recombine them. For example, c is an onset, and at is a rime; d is an onset, and og is a rime.
2. Have children hold up CVC letter cards to say the onset and the rime.
3. Break the onset and rimes in digraph words apart, and put them together again, accompanied by movement and music.
4. Working with blends to break them apart into onsets and rimes with music and movement is fun for the children!

Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonant-vowel-consonant, or CVC) words.* (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/)

1. Identify some words to segment into individual sounds. Identify the initial sounds in 3-phoneme (CVC) words.
2. Identify the medial vowel sound in 3-phoneme words.
3. Identify the ending sound in 3-phoneme words.

Segmenting and blending sounds

Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words

1. Play verbal riddles by adding, deleting, or substituting sounds.
2. Starting with letter titles, add and substitute phonemes to make new words.
3. Pattern a board game on Chutes and Ladders to move up or down based on giving the correct response.

Adapting for diverse learners

• Leverage children’s native language to build phonological awareness. For example, children can segment words into phonemes using their native language.
• Based on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, present information to students in multiple ways, with visuals, video, and audio. This is especially important for English Language Learners (ELLs).
• Engage students in authentic learning experiences such as experiencing music, poetry reading, and dance from different cultural groups to hear the sounds and rhythms of different languages.
• Provide students with options and multiple ways of expression to assess their achievement of the learning outcomes. They may showcase their learning through written, audio, or video formats.

Technology integration and professional development resources

• Explore online games related to phonological awareness.
• Read literacy blog posts for ideas on technology integration.
• Explore phonological development lesson plans and interactives.
• Engage in literacy professionals’ Twitter chats such as #ILAchat and #NCTEchat.
• Listen to literacy podcasts (Book Deserts, Cult of Pedagogy, etc.).
• Explore professional literacy educators’ TikTok and Instagram pages to see how they leverage technology to make learning fun and engaging in small bites!
• Listen to recorded stories and explore educational websites.
• Explore pertinent digital games and apps focused on developing phonological awareness.

Integration across content (science, math, social studies)

• Count syllables using spoken words related to science, math, and social studies.
• Use spoken words related to science, math, and social studies to play rhyming games.
• Use spoken words related to science, math, and social studies to count and segment phonemes.

Guardians as partners in literacy

• Encourage guardians to sing family and cultural lullabies to their children at home.
• Encourage oral storytelling at home. Relatives may pitch in as well. Have them think of folktales, fables, or other cultural stories.
• Encourage siblings to play rhyming games or makeup jump rope rhymes.

As metacognition is an important skill to develop in preservice teachers, here are some discussion-based reflection questions.

This potential assignment is culturally relevant and considers varied literacy practices situated in multiple cultural contexts while integrating technology.  It honors cultural and community literacy practices. For example, I grew up in the oral storytelling tradition. My phonological awareness developed as a child when I heard my grandmother tell me Indian folktales, fables, legends, and myths.

This is the rubric to evaluate the assignment. Encourage students to self-evaluate using this rubric.

The rubric of Early-Literacy Narrative

Criteria	Proficient	Developing	Novice
Ideas	Brimming with fresh and original ideas focused on identifying the school, home, and community literacy practices and their contribution to the literacy development of the author.	Somewhat addresses all parts with interesting and focused ideas covering school, home, and community literacy practices.	Does not address all parts, with many details missing, and is not focused.
Organization	The piece is well-organized, with effective grabbers, transitions, and conclusions. Addresses all parts of the prompt.	Somewhat organized with effective grabbers, transitions, and conclusions, with room for improvement. Somewhat complete.	No evidence of an organizational structure. Incomplete areas.
Voice	Authentically infused with the author’s identity, personality, and creativity in its design and composition.	Somewhat infused with the identity, personality, and creativity of the author.	The presentation is not infused with the author’s identity, personality, or creativity.
Word choice	Concisely composed, with effective word choices, strong verbs (that show, not tell), and vivid vocabulary to create memorable moments.	Somewhat concisely composed with effective word choices.	Not concisely composed. Exhibits redundancy.
Sentence fluency	Flows smoothly.	Reads/flows somewhat smoothly, with some room for improvement.	Does not read/flow smoothly. Has choppy or run-on sentences.
Conventions	Polished and edited, with attention to spelling, grammar, and punctuation.	Somewhat polished and edited.	Not polished and edited, with several errors in conventions.
Presentation	Visually appealing, with supporting visuals, videos, and hyperlinks.	Somewhat visually appealing, with supporting visuals, videos, and hyperlinks.	Not at all visually appealing and lacks multimodality.

References

Chard, D. J., & Dickson, S. V. (1999). Phonological awareness: Instructional and assessment guidelines. Intervention in School and Clinic, 34, 261-270.

Carol, J. M., Snowling, M. J., Stevenson, J., & Hulme, C. (2003). The development of phonological awareness in preschool children. Developmental Psychology, 39(5), 913-923.

Cartwright, K. B. & Duke, N. (2019). The DRIVE model of reading: Making the complexity of reading accessible. The Reading Teacher, 73(1), 7-15.

Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49, 222-251.

Goswami, U., & Bryant, P. (1990). Phonological skills and learning to read. Erlbaum.

Liberman, I. Y. (1973). Segmentation of the spoken word and reading acquisition. Bulletin of the Orton Society, 23, 65–77.

Liberman, I. Y., Shankweiler, D., Fischer, F. W., & Carter, B. (1974). Explicit syllable and phoneme segmentation in the young child. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 18, 201–212.

Lopez, Lisa M. (2012). Assessing the phonological skills of bilingual children From preschool through kindergarten: Developmental progression and cross-language transfer. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 26, 4, 371-91.