Phonological Awareness, Phonemic Awareness, Phonics
What does it all mean for my child?
Understanding the ladder to literacy
Phonological awareness (will also be referred to as PA) is the area of oral language that relates to the ability to think about sounds - that is, the sound structure of language...words, syllables, rhymes and phonemes. Phonological awareness activities involves working with rhymes, words, sentences, syllables, and phonemes (individual sounds). Phonological awareness is a conscious awareness of sensitivity to the sound structure of language. PA includes the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds and syllables used to compose SPOKEN words. Over time, this foundational skill helps children understand that words are a collection of parts. PA develops gradually and sequentially through late pre-school years.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and identify the individual sounds (phonemes) that are blended to produce words.
Phonics is the relationship between the sounds of spoken words and the letters or groups of letters that represent those sounds in the written word.
Why is phonological awareness important?
Learning to read is a developmental process that starts very early in life. First, children must learn how to put sounds together (phonological awareness). At this point, written words are not involved, but rather just orally blending syllables/sounds together to make words. Exposing children to lots of language play (songs, rhymes, books, etc.) is an essential step in climbing the ladder to literacy. As this skill increases, a child begins to build skills to be identify individual sounds in spoken words and finally, children are able to apply this sound knowledge to print.
Concept of print is also important during this process. While to adults it may seem simple, helping children understand where the front and back of a book are located, where the print starts at and what direction to read should be taught explicitly.
Why is phonemic awareness so important?
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and identify phonemes (individual sounds) that are blended to produce words. Based on research analyses (e.g., Pratt & Brady, 1988; Shaywitz, 1996), it is now known that good readers are more phonemically aware. Being low in phonemic awareness causes problems in learning to decode. The continuing effect is less practice in reading and less exposure to text, thus less time spent developing critical higher order reading skills - i.e comprehension and vocabulary knowledge.
Why is phonics so important?
Understanding spoken sounds can be written to form words is essential to the beginning reader. The beginning reader uses this knowledge to learn how to decode words, mapping the individual sounds and blending the sounds together to decode words. In the beginning, it takes much effort on the readers part, but over time and with much practice, the process should become fluent and effortless.