| Phonological awareness is the awareness of all of | | | | foundation for writing. It can be a challenge to |
| the sounds of language. It is the ability to hear | | | | learn to hear all of the individual sounds in a word. |
| and distinguish sounds. | | | | These skills train children's ears to hear and |
| There are five skills involved in phonological | | | | process information necessary for reading and |
| awareness. These include: | | | | writing. It is important to start young in helping |
| | | | children develop these skills. Whether in a formal |
| 1. Listening: It is important that children have some | | | | preschool time, or informal anytime practice, |
| basic skills in learning to listen for specific things to | | | | teaching these skills can be a natural part of |
| begin learning phonological awareness. | | | | everyday. There are many fun and engaging |
| 2. Words and sentences: Children need to be able | | | | ways to practice these skills. The following are a |
| to distinguish what a word is and to know that | | | | few ideas: |
| sentences are made up of words. | | | | |
| 3. Rhyming: Recognizing rhymes and being able to | | | | 1. Practice giving 1 step, then 2 step, and then 3 |
| make their own rhymes is the next step. | | | | step instructions. |
| 4. Syllables: The next step is breaking words into | | | | 2. Say a short sentence and help your child take a |
| syllables. Children should be able to count syllables | | | | step forward for each word in the sentence. |
| and blend them together. | | | | 3. Make silly rhymes with the child's name, and |
| 5. Onset and rime: This is breaking syllables into | | | | other familiar names. |
| two parts. The onset is everything before the | | | | 4. Start by breaking a word into onset and rime |
| vowel in a syllable, the rime is the vowel and | | | | and such as /fr/ /og/. You say the two parts |
| everything after. For example; the /c/ in cat is | | | | aloud and have the child put them back together. |
| the onset, the /at/ is the rime. The /fr/ in frog is | | | | Eventually, as the concept becomes easier, give |
| the onset, the /og/ is the rime. These skills lead | | | | the child a word and have him or her break it into |
| children to learn to blend and segment individual | | | | onset and rime. This is a difficult concept because |
| sounds and phonemes. Blending (putting sounds | | | | it is not very natural, so it takes a lot of practice. |
| together) is the foundation for reading. In order to | | | | It is a very important that children learn how to |
| blend children must take individual sounds, put | | | | segment onset and rime, because once they |
| them together and make a recognizable word. For | | | | have mastered it, blending and segmenting |
| example sometimes a child might be able to put | | | | individual sounds is much easier. As you help your |
| three sounds together /c/ /a/ /t/, and still not | | | | child develop these phonological awareness skills, |
| know that the word says cat. Segmenting (taking | | | | learning to read and write will become a much |
| words apart into individual sounds) is the | | | | easier process. |