Chapter 3. Phonological Awareness
Nandita Gurjar
“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” – Victor Hugo
Keywords: phonological awareness, phonemes, graphemes, syllables, onset, rimes, short vowel sounds, long vowel sounds, hearing and recording sounds assessment
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: 1st 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!
This video explains the difference between phonological awareness and phonemic awareness:
Download Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Video Transcript [DOC]
This video demonstrates the difference between phonemes and letters:
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.
What is the difference between a letter and a phoneme?
A letter is a visual representation of the sound it makes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in spoken language. For example, six has three letters but four phonemes (/s/-/i/-/k/-/s/). A letter or grapheme such as s may make different sounds (phonemes) depending on the word. For example, the letter s makes different sounds in snake and treasure.
- Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound in the spoken language. For example, “dog” has three phonemes: /d/, /o/, and /g/. Listening to phonemes in speech requires auditory discrimination. Phonemic awareness (awareness of individual sounds) requires the hearing ability to identify, distinguish, and manipulate individual sounds in speech. Listening to lullabies and nursery rhymes develops awareness of the sounds of a particular language in children.
- Morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning in a language. For example, “cat” is one morpheme, a single unit of meaning. Adding an “s” (a bound morpheme) to “cat” changes the meaning from a singular (cat) to a plural (cats) with two morphemes. See the phonics PowerPoint in Chapter 4 for types of morphemes. The reference to a morpheme is made to distinguish it from a phoneme.
- Graphemes: the letters representing the smallest unit of sound in the spoken language. The phoneme /d/ is written with a grapheme d. The phoneme /f/ can be represented with the graphemes- f or ph. Writing requires encoding phonemes into graphemes.
- Syllable: a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants. For example, nan-di-ta (3 syllables) or dog (1 syllable). See Jack Hartman’s video given in this chapter for syllable practice.
- Onset: the letter(s) representing the initial consonant sound before the vowel in a syllable or one-syllable word. For example, “C” in “cat” is an onset, and “d” in “dog” is an onset.
- Rime: the letters representing the medial vowel and final consonant(s) in a syllable or one-syllable word. For example, “at” in “cat” is a rime, and “og” in “dog” is a rime.
- Short vowel sounds: the short vowel sounds are usually found in (C)VC, (consonant)-vowel-consonant, words where the medial vowel has the short vowel sound, for example, the /a/ sound in cat or apple.
- Long vowel sounds: the long vowel sounds consist of words where the a, e, i, o, or u say their name. These words often have vowel teams or the letter e at the end, as in CVVC or CVCe words, for example, rain and rake.
Theory of developmental progression of phonological awareness
Children’s developmental progression of phonological awareness occurs in 3 stages (Goswami & Bryant, 1990):
- syllable awareness,
- onset and rime awareness,
- 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
- Read books with rhyming words.
- Listen to lullabies and nursery rhymes.
- Play rhyming games.
- Finger rhymes and jump rope rhymes are some ways to have fun while building phonological awareness!
- Have fun with rhyming riddles!
- Use word families to create rhymes.
- 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
- 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.
- Have children hold up CVC letter cards to say the onset and the rime.
- Break the onset and rimes in digraph words apart, and put them together again, accompanied by movement and music.
- 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/)
- Identify some words to segment into individual sounds. Identify the initial sounds in 3-phoneme (CVC) words.
- Identify the medial vowel sound in 3-phoneme words.
- 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
- Play verbal riddles by adding, deleting, or substituting sounds.
- Starting with letter titles, add and substitute phonemes to make new words.
- 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.
- Think back to your memorable literacy experiences in early childhood. Make a T-chart in your notebook. On the left, list school, home, and community literacy practices. On the right, explain their role in your literacy development. Share and discuss your chart with your peers.
- What do you recollect about your school literacy practices?
- What were some memorable books that were read to you or that you read; traditional songs or lullabies that were sung to you or you listened to; and any other family or cultural literacy practices such as oral storytelling of folklore that you experienced?
- What were some community literacy practices that you experienced growing up? How did these practices build your phonological awareness?
- What role did these literacy practices play in your overall literacy development?
- How does the progression of phonological development in children inform your lesson planning?
- What are some of the ways you would develop phonological awareness in diverse children?
- How would you differentiate and personalize phonological awareness strategies for children with hearing or speech disabilities?
- Phonological awareness is an auditory skill. It involves manipulating units of sound in the spoken language.
- Rhyme and alliteration are key in developing phonological awareness.
- Syllable awareness develops first.
- Onset and rime awareness develops next.
- Awareness of phonemes develops last.
- Read rhyming books.
- Sing lullabies and jump rope rhymes.
- Clap, count, and segment syllables, onsets, rimes, and phonemes.
- Build on students’ first language and home literacies.
Resources for teacher educators
Blending games:
Phoneme segmentation games and activities:
- Phoneme segmentation games and activities
- Segmenting
- Phoneme segmentation fluency
- Reading Rockets resource on diagnosing phonological awareness difficulties from child’s, parent’s, and teacher’s perspectives and how to help
Teaching resources:
- Phonological Awareness [Slide deck]
- Effectiveness of Early Literacy Instruction: Summary of 20 Years of Research [PDF]
- Early childhood literacy narrative (see details below)
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.
Purpose of the assignment: Identify early literacy practices.
- Please identify your childhood school, home, and community literacy practices. Reflect on how they impacted your early literacy development. Prepare a multimodal media presentation to showcase your findings.
- Please reflect on early childhood literacy experiences to identify significant school literacy practices, home literacy practices, and community/cultural literacy practices.
- Investigate the contribution of literacy practices to early literacy development. Please reflect on how these literacy practices contributed to your early literacy development.
- Create a multimodal presentation with visuals, photographs, audio, and video.
Why is it relevant for future educators?
Metacognition is a reflective activity encouraged in teacher-education programs. By reflecting on one’s prior literacy practices at home, at school, and in the community, we can take future actions to promote positive literacy practices while honoring cultural and home literacies.
How to do it?
Storyboard your ideas. Sketch a visual representation of how they flow. Make notes and write a script for the audio and video. Choose a technology platform to create your early-literacy narrative. Select pertinent supporting visuals, photographs, videos, and hyperlinks to develop your multimodal narrative. Multimodality involves using more than one medium to express yourself. You may explore Prezi, iMovie, or another technology platform.
This is the rubric to evaluate the assignment. Encourage students to self-evaluate using this rubric.
|
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.