Why is it important to learn phonological awareness skills

The phonological processor usually works unconsciously when we listen and speak. It is designed to extract the meaning of what is said, not to notice the speech sounds in the words. It is designed to do its job automatically in the service of efficient communication. But reading and spelling require a level of metalinguistic speech that is not natural or easily acquired.

On the other hand, phonological skill is not strongly related to intelligence. Some very intelligent people have limitations of linguistic awareness, especially at the phonological level. Take heart. If you find phonological tasks challenging, you are competent in many other ways!

This fact is well proven: Phonological awareness is critical for learning to read any alphabetic writing system (Ehri, 2004; Rath, 2001; Troia, 2004). Phonological awareness is even important for reading other kinds of writing systems, such as Chinese and Japanese. There are several well-established lines of argument for the importance of phonological skills to reading and spelling.

Phoneme awareness is necessary for learning and using the alphabetic code

English uses an alphabetic writing system in which the letters, singly and in combination, represent single speech sounds. People who can take apart words into sounds, recognize their identity, and put them together again have the foundation skill for using the alphabetic principle (Liberman, Shankweiler, & Liberman, 1989; Troia, 2004). Without phoneme awareness, students may be mystified by the print system and how it represents the spoken word.

Students who lack phoneme awareness may not even know what is meant by the term sound. They can usually hear well and may even name the alphabet letters, but they have little or no idea what letters represent. If asked to give the first sound in the word dog, they are likely to say "Woof-woof!" Students must be able to identify /d/ in the words dog, dish, and mad and separate the phoneme from others before they can understand what the letter d represents in those words.

Phoneme awareness predicts later outcomes in reading and spelling

Phoneme awareness facilitates growth in printed word recognition. Even before a student learns to read, we can predict with a high level of accuracy whether that student will be a good reader or a poor reader by the end of third grade and beyond (Good, Simmons, and Kame'enui, 2001; Torgesen, 1998, 2004). Prediction is possible with simple tests that measure awareness of speech sounds in words, knowledge of letter names, knowledge of sound-symbol correspondence, and vocabulary.

The majority of poor readers have relative difficulty with phoneme awareness and other phonological skills

Research cited in Module 1 has repeatedly shown that poor readers as a group do relatively less well on phoneme awareness tasks than on other cognitive tasks. In addition, at least 80 percent of all poor readers are estimated to demonstrate a weakness in phonological awareness and/or phonological memory. Readers with phonological processing weaknesses also tend to be the poorest spellers (Cassar, Treiman, Moats, Pollo, & Kessler, 2005).

Instruction in phoneme awareness is beneficial for novice readers and spellers

Instruction in speech-sound awareness reduces and alleviates reading and spelling difficulties (Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, 1998; Gillon, 2004; NICHD, 2000; Rath, 2001). Teaching speech sounds explicitly and directly also accelerates learning of the alphabetic code. Therefore, classroom instruction for beginning readers should include phoneme awareness activities.

Phonological awareness interacts with and facilitates the development of vocabulary and word consciousness

This argument is made much less commonly than the first four points. Phonological awareness and memory are involved in these activities of word learning:

  • Attending to unfamiliar words and comparing them with known words
  • Repeating and pronouncing words correctly
  • Remembering (encoding) words accurately so that they can be retrieved and used
  • Differentiating words that sound similar so their meanings can be contrasted

On this page

  • Phonological awareness skills
  • How phonemic awareness relates to phonological awareness
  • The difference between phonological awareness and phonics
  • Why use phonological awareness
  • Theory to practice
  • Rhyming words
  • Phonological awareness onset-rime
  • Syllabification
  • Evidence base
  • Links to the Victorian Curriculum - English
  • Example activities
  • References

​​​Phonological awareness is a crucial skill to develop in children. It is strongly linked to early reading and spelling success through its association with phonics. It is a focus of literacy teaching incorporating:

  • recognising phonological patterns such as rhyme and alliteration
  • awareness of syllables and phonemes within words, and
  • hearing multiple phonemes within words.

Phonological awareness skills

Phonological awareness skills can be conceptualised within a sequence of increasing complexity:

  1. Why is it important to learn phonological awareness skills
    Syllable Awareness (docx - 274.77kb)
  2. Why is it important to learn phonological awareness skills
    Rhyme awareness and production (docx - 400.87kb)
  3. Why is it important to learn phonological awareness skills
    Alliteration - Sorting initial and final sounds (docx - 679.3kb)
  4. Why is it important to learn phonological awareness skills
    Onset-Rime segmentation (docx - 250.94kb)
  5. Why is it important to learn phonological awareness skills
    Initial and final sound segmentation (docx - 422.36kb)
  6. Why is it important to learn phonological awareness skills
    Blending sounds into words (docx - 1.63mb)
  7. Why is it important to learn phonological awareness skills
    Segmenting words into sounds (docx - 572.86kb)
  8. Why is it important to learn phonological awareness skills
    Deleting and manipulating sounds (docx - 4.95mb)

The diagram below displays this concept:

Why is it important to learn phonological awareness skills

How phonemic awareness relates to phonological awareness

Phonological awareness consists of all the above competencies, and phonemic awareness is a critical subset of phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness includes onset-rime identification, initial and final sound segmenting, as well as blending, segmenting, and deleting/manipulating sounds (see diagram above).

The difference between phonological awareness and phonics

While phonological awareness includes the awareness of speech sounds, syllables, and rhymes, phonics is the mapping of speech sounds (phonemes) to letters (or letter patterns, i.e. graphemes). Phonological Awareness and Phonics are therefore not the same, but these literacy focuses tend to overlap.

Phonics builds upon a foundation of phonological awareness, specifically phonemic awareness. As students learn to read and spell, they fine-tune their knowledge of the relationships between phonemes and graphemes in written language. As reading and spelling skills develop, focussing on phonemic awareness improves phonics knowledge, and focussing on phonics also improve phonemic awareness.

Why use phonological awareness

Developing strong competencies in phonological awareness is important for all students, as the awareness of the sounds in words and syllables is critical to hearing and segmenting the words students want to spell, and blending together the sounds in words that students read. Focussing on phonological awareness is recommended to form a key component of early childhood education for literacy, starting with syllable, rhyme, and initial/final sound (alliteration) awareness.

In the early years of primary school, the focus of phonological awareness includes syllable, rhyme, and alliteration awareness, but has a stronger focus on phonemic awareness, especially sound blending, segmentation, and manipulation — as these are the strongest predictors of early decoding success.

Theory to practice

Phonological awareness is a key early competency of emergent and proficient reading, including an explicit awareness of the structure of words, syllables, onset-rime, and individual phonemes. Together with phonics, phonological awareness (in particular phonemic awareness) is an essential competency for breaking the code of written language as per the Four Resources Model for Reading and Viewing

Rhyming words

In this video, the teacher leads a whole class lesson that focuses on rhyming words.

Phonological awareness onset-rime

In this video the teacher explicitly teaches onset and rime through a mini lesson. Students make differentiated onset-rime booklets to practise the skill of onset-rime segmentation.

Syllabification

In this video, the teacher leads a whole class lesson that focuses on syllables.

Evidence base

National reports on the teaching of reading in the US, UK and Australia support the inclusion of phonological awareness in early literacy programs. Hill (2016, p.110) notes the importance of phonological awareness as ‘a precursor to decoding’ which needs to be explicitly taught (Adams, 2011).

Foundation

Reading

  • Understand concepts about print and screen, including how books, film and simple digital texts work, and know some features of print, including directionality (Content description VCELA142)
  • Recognise all upper- and lower-case letters and the most common sound that each letter represents (Content description VCELA146)

Speaking and listening

  • Identify rhyming words, alliteration patterns, syllables and some sounds (phonemes) in spoken words (Content description VCELA168)
  • Blend and segment onset and rime in single syllable spoken words and isolate, blend and segment phonemes in single syllable words (first consonant sound, last consonant sound, middle vowel sound) (Content description VCELA169)
  • Replicate the rhythms and sound patterns in stories, rhymes, songs and poems from a range of cultures (Content description VCELT172)

Writing

  • Understand that punctuation is a feature of written text different from letters and recognise how capital letters are used for names, and that capital letters and full stops signal the beginning and end of sentences (Content description VCELA156)
  • Understand that sounds in English are represented by upper- and lower-case letters that can be written using learned letter formation patterns for each case (Content description VCELY162)

Level 1

Reading

  • Understand concepts about print and screen, including how different types of texts are organised using page numbering, tables of content, headings and titles, navigation buttons, bars and links (Content description VCELA177)

Speaking and listening

  • Identify the separate phonemes in consonant blends or clusters at the beginnings and ends of syllables (Content description VCELA203)
  • Manipulate phonemes by addition, deletion and substitution of initial, medial and final phonemes to generate new words (Content description VCELA204)

Writing

  • Recognise that different types of punctuation, including full stops, question marks and exclamation marks, signal sentences that make statements, ask questions, express emotion or give commands (Content description VCELA190)

Level 2

Speaking and listening

  • Manipulate more complex sounds in spoken words through knowledge of blending and segmenting sounds, phoneme deletion and substitution (Content description VCELA238)
  • Identify all Standard Australian English phonemes, including short and long vowels, separate sounds in clusters (Content description VCELA239)

Pathway A

Speaking and listening

Level A1 

  • Imitate pronunciation, stress and intonation patterns (VCEALL027)
  • Use intelligible pronunciation but with many pauses and hesitations (VCEALL028)

Level A2

  • Repeat or modify a sentence or phrase, modelling rhythm, intonation and pronunciation on the speech of others (VCEALL109)
  • Identify and produce phonemes in blends or clusters at the beginning and end of syllables (VCEALL110)

Reading

Level A1

  • Identify some sounds in words (VCEALL050)
  • Recognise some common letters and letter patterns in words (VCEALL051)

Level A2 

  • Relate most letters of the alphabet to sounds (VCEALL131)
  • Use knowledge of letters and sounds to read a new word or locate key words (VCEALL132)

Writing

Level A1 

  • Spell with accuracy some consonant–vowel–consonant words and common words learnt in the classroom (VCEALL080)

Level A2 

  • Spell with accuracy familiar words and words with common letter patterns (VCEALL159) 

Pathway B

Speaking and listening

Level BL

  • Use comprehensible pronunciation for familiar words
  • Repeat or re-pronounce words of phrases, when prompted, if not understood
  • (VCEALL183)

Level B1 

  • Use comprehensible pronunciation for a range of high-frequency words learnt in class (VCEALL262)
  • Repeat or re-pronounce words of phrases, when prompted, if not understood (VCEALL263)

Level B2 

  • Use clear pronunciation for common words and learnt key topic words (VCEALL343)
  • Self-correct and improve aspects of pronunciation that impede communication (VCEALL344)

Level B3 

  • Self-correct and improve aspects of pronunciation that impede communication, and focus on correction (VCEALL423)

Reading and viewing 

Level BL 

  • Recognise the letters of the alphabet (VCEALL208)
  • Attempt to self-correct (VCEALL211) 

Level B1

  • Identify common syllables and patterns within words (VCEALL288)
  • Self-correct with guidance (VCEALL291)

Level B2

  • Apply knowledge of letter–sound relationships to read new words with some support (VCEALL368)
  • Self-correct pronunciation (VCEALL371)

Level B3 

  • Apply knowledge of letter–sound relationships to deduce the pronunciation of new words (VCEALL447)
  • Self-correct a range of aspects of speech (VCEALL450)

Writing 

Level BL 

  • Spell a number of high-frequency words accurately (VCEALL237)

Level B1

  • Spell accurately common words encountered in the classroom (VCEALL318)

Level B2

  • Spell frequently used words with common patterns with increased accuracy (VCEALL398)

Level B3

  • Spell most words accurately, drawing on a range of strategies but with some invented spelling still evident (VCEALL477) 

Example activities

For example activities to develop the major phonological awareness skills, see: Examples to Promote Phonological Awareness

References

Adams, M. J. (2011). The relation between alphabetic basics, word recognition and reading. In S. J. Samuels & A. E. Farstrup (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (4th ed.) (pp. 4-24). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Allington, R., Baker, M., Baumann, J., Hoffman, J., Stumpf Jongsma, K., Klein, A., Larson, D., Logan, J. & Morrow, L. (1998). Phonemic awareness and the teaching of reading: A position statement from the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association.

Hill, S. (2012). Developing early literacy: assessment and teaching (2nd ed.). South Yarra, Vic. Eleanor Curtain Publishing.


What are the most important phonological awareness skills?

The most important phonological awareness skills for children to learn at these grade levels are phoneme blending and phoneme segmentation, although for some children, instruction may need to start at more rudimentary levels of phonological awareness such as alliteration or rhyming.

What is the importance of phonological awareness in every child's learning?

The importance of phonological awareness The awareness of the sounds that make up words is critical to being able to blend sounds together for later reading, and segmenting words into sounds for later spelling. Educators can introduce these concepts to young children through: songs. rhymes and games.

Why is studying phonology important?

Phonology is the study of the patterns of sounds in a language. It is important in language learning because it helps learners to understand how the sounds of a language are used, and how they can be produced. It also helps them to learn the correct pronunciation of words.

Why is phonemic awareness important in learning and or acquiring a language?

Acquiring phonemic awareness is important because it is the foundation for spelling and word recognition skills. Phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of how well children will learn to read during the first two years of school instruction.