What comes to your mind when you first read “language sounds”? Maybe songs or your music teacher. But language sounds are not just about songs that we hear or sing. The language sounds also include all the sounds we produce while speaking. And, our ability to identify and understand various sounds in spoken words is called Phonological Awareness. It’s not that complicated as it sounds, right? We will make it further easier for you to understand.
Do you remember how in your preschool the teacher used to make you learn rhymes? It was all a part of the process to build up your Phonological Awareness. It develops your ability to pick out rhyming words and count the number of syllables. It also involves noticing alliteration (repeating of sounds throughout a stanza).
Phonological Awareness is also known as Sound Awareness commonly. This awareness can be considered as a skill that lets us recognize and work with the sounds of spoken language. Young preschool students who have strong Phonological Awareness can easily create rhymes, count syllables, and blend sounds into words. In fact, most importantly, kids with strong phonological awareness learn to read much more easily. Their first attempts at reading are more successful. The sooner kids are able to develop Phonological Awareness, the better their learning & school phase becomes.
So, let us have further insight into the development of Phonological Awareness.
Development of Phonological Awareness in Kids
The development of Phonological Awareness is just like learning to ride a bicycle. The little child first learns to walk properly (mostly with a walker), then learns to run and then finally gets a tricycle. After learning to pedal and ride faster they get a bicycle with support wheels which are removed after practice. Finally with time and constant practice, the child becomes able to ride a bicycle without support!
Similarly for Phonological Awareness the kid is first taught sounds referring to basic objects like water & food, and names of family members like mom & dad. After all these, the child learns the alphabet and other sounds in school. They learn the names of objects around them. Slowly and steadily, they get into rhymes, stories, texts, etc.
Therefore, Phonological Awareness is not a skill that can be developed within a very short period of time. It develops gradually. We start with the easy parts like understanding spoken language words, and then moving on to the ability to rhyme. Eventually, we build on more advanced skills like manipulating sounds and that’s how we are able to play word games!
Skills under Phonological Awareness
Phonological Awareness is not a single skill. It comprises various skills and forms the overall reading ability of a child. Some of the skills that come under Phonological Awareness are listed below with examples for your reference.
- The ability to recognize when words rhyme and coming up with more rhyming words. For example, catch and match are rhyming words and we came up with another word snatch. Can you find more?
- The ability to recognize segmented words in sentences. For example, clapping on each word in the sentence “I have a red cap”. Five claps, that’s right!
- Being able to blend syllables. For example, blend these two parts “San-ta” and form the word.
- Being able to delete syllables. For example, say the word headphone. Now say it after removing “head”.
- Identifying sounds in words. Like what sound can you identify in the word tree?
- The ability to add sounds in words and form new words. Like, try to add the sound of “lee” after rough.
You were able to answer them all? Whoa! You have efficiently developed your Phonological Awareness. Just a little more practice and you are going to become an expert. The activity worksheets and printables at English Bix are here for your aid.