Phonological awareness is an individual's awareness of the phonological structure, or sound structure, of words.) are often used by teachers, psychologists and speech therapists to help understand difficulties in this aspect of language and literacy. Although the tasks vary, they share the basic requirement that some operation (e.g., identifying, comparing, separating, combining, generating) be performed on the sounds. It is assumed that the individual performing these tasks must have awareness of the units of sound in order to perform the operation.
Phonological awareness is one component of a larger phonological processing system used for speaking and listening. All levels of phonological awareness ability (syllable, onset-rhyme, and phoneme) contribute to reading abilities in the Kindergarten through second grade. Some research demonstrates that, at least for older children, there may be utility to extending the development of phonological awareness skills in the context of activities that involve letters and spelling. A number of scholars have been working on this approach.
See also
- Auditory processing disorder
- Dyslexia
- Phonological deficit hypothesis
References
Further reading
External links
- WikEd's Phonemic Awareness Page