Phonological awareness
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Phonological awareness is the ability to notice and work with the sound parts of spoken language, such as words, syllables, rhymes and individual sounds.
Topic: Reading and writing instruction
In plain terms
It is an oral skill: no letters are needed. Children with phonological awareness can clap syllables, hear rhymes, say the first sound in a word, and blend or split sounds. It develops from larger units (words and syllables) toward smaller ones (individual phonemes) and is a strong predictor of early reading success.
How it shows up in an IEP
Goals target specific tasks, such as blending three sounds into a word or segmenting words into sounds, measured with short oral probes. Weak phonological skills often explain why decoding instruction is not sticking.
Example
A kindergartner hears "/m/ /a/ /p/" and says "map." The goal is blending three-sound words correctly in 9 of 10 trials across three sessions.
Not the same as Phonemic awareness
Phonological awareness covers all sound units. Phonemic awareness is the most advanced part: working with individual phonemes. Read the definition of Phonemic awareness.
Related terms
- Phonemic awarenessPhonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify and change the individual sounds, called phonemes, in spoken words.
- PhonicsPhonics is instruction that teaches how letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken language, so students can decode and spell words.
- DecodingDecoding is using knowledge of letter-sound patterns to read a printed word by turning letters into sounds and blending them.
- Structured literacyStructured literacy is an approach to reading instruction that teaches language systems explicitly and systematically, from sounds to meaning.
- DyslexiaDyslexia is a specific learning disability that mainly affects accurate, fluent word reading and spelling, often rooted in processing speech sounds.
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