Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness

What Is Phonological Awareness? What Is Phonemic Awareness? What’s the Difference?

Studies show that 90 percent of children with significant reading challenges have a core deficit in phonological processing. And Science of Reading research tells us that phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are critical skills for young learners to develop in order to be successful readers. Yet these two similar-sounding terms are often confused by educators. Throw in sometimes overly complicated definitions, and it can make it difficult for teachers to fully understand the two concepts — and then teach them in effective and engaging ways.

Savvas author and literacy expert Sharon Vaughn believes that a better understanding of how these skills play a role in a student’s reading development not only helps teachers of reading with their instruction, it will lead to less reliance on worksheets and more enjoyment for both teachers and students. By putting the fun into phonological awareness, learning becomes more memorable and meaningful.

“Phonological awareness and phonemic awareness activities are some of the most fun you can have in the classroom,” Sharon said. “It doesn’t only have to be about getting out a piece of paper and drawing sound boxes. Bring it to life!”

What Is Phonological Awareness and How Is It Different from Phonemic Awareness?

In their early years, sometimes before they even set foot into a classroom, children start developing phonological awareness, that is, they become more and more aware of how spoken language works. This phonological awareness is a critical stepping stone to learning how written words work and, eventually, learning to read.

There are five levels of phonological awareness. These levels start simple and become more complex as children develop the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds (or phonemes) in words. The five levels of phonological awareness are word awareness, rhyme and alliteration awareness, syllable awareness, onset and rime awareness, and phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the last and most sophisticated level of phonological awareness, and is crucial to learning to read. Phonemic awareness helps students map the sounds of language to letters and thus to reading words.

What Is Onset and Rime?
Onset and rime are two parts of a word. The onset is the first consonant sound, blend, or digraph in a single syllable word or syllable. The rime is the first vowel sound followed by all the other sounds (og in dog, each in teach).

“The ultimate goal is to read for understanding. But if we don’t take time to build phonological awareness and phonemic awareness, it will take longer to get there,” said Sharon. “Building a house without a foundation is not very stable, and doesn’t last. So we want to make sure we have this foundation well established.”

What Does Phonemic Awareness Instruction Look Like?

Phonemic awareness is the most challenging and valuable step in developing a student's phonological awareness and contributes to their acquisition of the critical reading skill, phonics. So, it’s important for educators to spend time ensuring that students develop this skill through explicit instruction. There are six fundamental elements of phonemic awareness that, once students are able to master, will lead to that strong foundation for learning to read. These elements include phoneme isolation, segmenting, blending, manipulating, deletion and replacement, and addition. Here are what those six elements can look like in the classroom. (Italics represent a teacher speaking to students.):

Phonemic Awareness in the Classroom

• Phoneme Isolation: Say the word road. What is the first sound in the word road? Students respond: /r/. What is the last sound in the word road? Students respond: /d/.
• Segmenting: Say the word man. Now, break up, or segment, the sounds in that word and what do you get? Students respond: /m/ /a/ /n/.
• Blending: Say the following sounds /c/ /a/ /t/. Put those sounds together, or blend them, and what do you get? Students respond by saying the word cat.
• Manipulating: Say the word dog. Now, take away the /o/ sound and replace it with the /i/ sound. What do you get? Students respond by saying the word dig.
• Deletion and Replacement: Say the word came. Now, take the /c/ sound away and what do you get? You get ame. Now, put a /t/ sound in front of ame and what do you get? Students respond by saying the word tame.
• Addition: Say the word pot. Now, let’s put an /s/ sound in front of it. What do we get? Students respond by saying the word spot.

Start with easy words, then increase the difficulty as you go on. For example, start with three- or four-letter words like dog or came, but then eventually move on to more complex words like berry. Make it engaging by making silly words and playing with sounds. Increase the difficulty until eventually they can start to recognize the relationship between the sounds of spoken words to words they see in print.

“You move from easy to more difficult. Then, you move to print. Then, you move right into phonics and it’s all so beautiful,” said Sharon. “And the kids are so happy because it’s so much fun to play with language.”

Put Phonological Awareness Into Practice

Now that we’ve learned all about phonological awareness and phonemic awareness and why they’re such an important part of learning to read, here are some activities, reminders, and suggestions for educators to consider while planning instruction.