Phonological Awareness is defined by one's awareness to the phonological structure of words in language. It is considered an "umbrella" term which covers aspects of sounds identification and manipulation in spoken language. Activities in Phonological Awareness are based on a progression of skill difficulty.
The goal of Phonological Awareness instruction is to develop an awareness that words are composed of individual sounds, or phonemes, and to develop the ability to manipulate words. All of these skills use pictures to practice learning the skills. Printed letters and/or words are used while teaching Phonics (the next level skill set after all phonological awareness skills are mastered).
Phonological Awareness is does NOT include printed letters. It DOES include pictures, objects and manipulatives. 2005 Florida Center for Reading Research
Rhyme
One of the first skills of phonological awareness is the ability to identify words that rhyme with one another, or have the same ending. For example, asking a student if two words rhyme, or asking them to find a word that rhymes with another certain word. There are many fun activities that can be used to practice rhyming skills.
Create a rhyming book where students cut out pictures of rhyming words and glue them in the book.
Have students circle pictures of objects that rhyme, find objects around the classroom or their house that rhyme, or sort objects into groups that rhyme with one another. Teachers may also want to use picture books to teach this strategy.
Alliteration
Alliteration is when words have the same initial sound. One activity to do with young students is to have them think of a word that has the same initial sound as their first name such as Awesome Annie, Summertime Sarah, or Funny Frankie.Alliteration is when words have the same initial sound. One activity to do with young students is to have them think of a word that has the same initial sound as their first name such as Awesome Annie, Summertime Sarah, or Funny Frankie.
Sentence Segmentation
Separating the words of a sentence aloud to identify each word individually. Teaching to count how many words are in a sentence. Teaching children to repeat short sentences (3-4 words) and build to longer sentences (7-10 words) to teach children to recall words and phrases within a sentence.
Syllables
Syllabification is the ability to identify the number of syllables in spoken words. Students are asked to “clap out” the number of syllables as they say the word out loud, and are also able to identify how many syllables are in a word. Syllabification also includes identifying first, middle, and last syllables, blending syllables, and adding, deleting, and substituting syllables. Learning the process of dividing words into syllables, or parts, helps students learn how to decode words faster, and will have an impact on students’ reading fluency and the ability to spell words correctly.
Onset & Rime
The “onset” is the first phonological unit of a word, and the “rime” is the string of letters that follows it. For example, in the word “dog”, the “d” is the onset and the “og” is the rime. In the word “flat”, the “fl” is the onset and the “at” is the rime. Learning about onset and rimes helps children understand word families, and helps build a strong reading foundation.
Phonemes
Phonemes are the smallest unit of sound. Phoneme isolation, which is the ability to isolate or separate a single sound from the other sounds in a word.