The Essential Guide to Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

Have you ever read the term phonological awareness or phonemic awareness on your child's report card? Both are critical to reading and writing, but they are not the same.

Phonological Awareness is a broad skill that includes recognising and working with sounds in spoken language. It encompasses a range of abilities, from identifying words that rhyme to counting the number of syllables in a word. It's about the awareness of the sound structures in language, and it's the foundation for phonemic awareness.

Phonemic Awareness is a subset of phonological awareness. It refers specifically to the ability to focus on and manipulate individual sounds, known as phonemes, in spoken words. For example, recognising that the word "bat" is made up of three phonemes /b/, /a/, and /t/ and being able to switch the /b/ with a /c/ to form "cat."

Here's how they differ:

• Phonological Awareness:
  • Includes skills such as rhyming, alliteration, and syllable segmentation.
  • Involves working with larger units of sound, such as words, syllables, and onsets and rimes.
  • Can be developed through activities like clapping out syllables or playing with rhymes.
• Phonemic Awareness:
  • Focuses on the smallest units of sound in language.
  • Involves skills like blending phonemes to make a word, segmenting a word into its phonemes, and manipulating phonemes to change words.

Both phonological and phonemic awareness are essential for learning to read and write. Phonological awareness activities set the stage for phonemic awareness, which is necessary for decoding words when reading and for spelling them when writing.

As parents, you can support your child's development in these areas by:

• For Phonological Awareness: Engaging in language play, such as rhyming games and songs, or breaking words into syllables. I have created a Udemy course with loads of ideas to help you develop your kiddo's phonological wareness over six weeks here: Speech Therapy for your Toddler: Phonological Awareness. Please email me if you are interested in this course, and I will send you a discount voucher!
• For Phonemic Awareness: Practicing specific phoneme manipulation activities, like substituting different sounds to make new words. I have a Udemy course for this too! Get heaps of ideas for developing your kiddo's phonemic awareness over six weeks here: Speech Therapy for your Preschooler: Phonemic Awareness. Please email me if you are interested in this course, and I will send you a discount voucher!

By fostering both phonological and phonemic awareness, you're laying the groundwork for successful literacy skills. Remember, these are fun and engaging activities that can be seamlessly integrated into your daily interactions with your child. It should not take any of your time, only some planning and intent.