Phonological & Phonemic Awareness

Phonological and phonemic awareness are at the heart of dyslexia. When a child lacks phonological and phonemic awareness, it can make learning to read, spell, and write more difficult.

Phonological awareness is a broader term than phonemic awareness. It is the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in a spoken language. It includes identifying syllables, rhymes, and individual phonemes in words. Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the individual sounds in words. For example, the word cat has three phonemes or three sounds: /c/, /a/, and /t/.

Reading Rockets addresses the importance of phonological awareness by stating that it “involves a continuum of skills that develop over time and that are crucial for reading and spelling success” (Reading Rockets, 2026).

Phonological and phonemic awareness can be done in the dark. A child does not need to know the sounds that letters make or the letter names to practice phonological and phonemic awareness. A parent can practice phonemic awareness while on a car ride with their kids. For example, asking a child to look out the window and find something that begins with the /s/ sound is an example of phonemic awareness. Answers the child might provide are sun, stoplight, stop sign, street, and snow. Again, phonological and phonemic awareness consist solely of the sounds we hear, not the letters used to express those sounds.

Let’s take a look at the skills included in phonological awareness.

Counting Words

When I give you the sentence, “The dog ate my shoe,” how many words are in that sentence? You’re right. There are five words in that sentence. Let me give you a sentence that might be a little more difficult. How many words are in the sentence, “I like strawberry ice cream.” It’s easy to see that there are also five words in this sentence because it is written out. However, an individual who lacks phonological awareness may have difficulty deciding if strawberry is one word or two. They may also have difficulty deciding whether ice cream is one word or two.

Counting Syllables

Instead of looking at a sentence and counting how many words are in this sentence, counting syllables looks at a word, such as tiger, and determines that there are two syllables in this word: ti/ger.

Syllable Segmenting

Syllable segmenting is similar to counting syllables, but in this step, children can identify all of the syllables in a word. For example, if I give the child the word “alligator,” the child would segment the word into its four syllables: al/li/ga/tor. At first, a child learns to segment syllables, but when we move into phonemic awareness, a child will learn to segment phonemes, such as the word “cat” into its phonemes /c/, /a/, and /t/.

Identifying First, Last, and Middle Syllables

When practicing this skill with a student, we begin by asking them to identify the first syllable in a word. The first syllable in the word “zebra” is /ze/. Next, we will ask them to find the last syllable in a word. The last syllable in the word “rabbit” is /bit/. Finally, we will ask them to find the middle syllable, which is the hardest syllable to hear. The middle syllable in the word “kangaroo” is /ga/.

Syllable Blending

On the flip side of syllable segmenting is syllable blending. Syllable blending often begins by teaching a child to blend two words into a compound word. If I say the word “straw” and then the word “berry,” those two words can be blended to give us the word “strawberry.” Blending two words into a compound word is an easier skill than blending the syllables in a word, such as blending the syllables el/e/phant to make the word “elephant.” At first, a child learns to blend syllables to make a word, but when we move into phonemic awareness, they will use this blending ability to blend the individual sounds into a word, such as the sounds /c/, /a/, and /t/ can be blended to make the word “cat.”

Manipulating Syllables

Manipulating syllables consists of adding, deleting, and substituting syllables. An example of adding syllables would be turning the word “cat” into “caterpillar.” An example of deleting syllables would be turning the word “battery” into “bat.” An example of substitution is changing the word “bunny” to “funny.”

Next, we will move into phonemic awareness skills.

Counting Phonemes

Phoneme counting is the process of identifying and counting the individual sounds, or phonemes, in a word. For example, you can break the word “cat” into its phonemes, which are /c/, /a/, and /t/, making it a total of three phonemes.

Phoneme Segmenting

Phoneme segmentation is the ability to break down a word into its individual sounds, or phonemes. For example, the word “dog” can be segmented into the sounds /d/, /o/, and /g/.

Phoneme segmentation is a key part of developing phonemic awareness, which is a strong predictor of reading success. It’s an essential skill for reading and writing because it helps children learn the relationships between letters, letter patterns, and sounds. 

Identifying First, Last, and Middle Phonemes

Phoneme isolation is the ability to identify a specific sound in a word, such as the first, middle, or last sound. For example, the first phoneme in pig is /p/, the last is /g/, and the middle is /i/.

Phoneme isolation is a phonemic awareness skill that’s important for developing literacy and language skills.

Phoneme Blending

Phoneme blending is the ability to combine individual sounds, or phonemes, to create a word. For example, blending the sounds /h/, /e/, and /n/ creates the word “hen.” 

Phoneme blending is an important phonemic awareness skill that children need to learn to become readers. It’s also a skill that children will use when they start writing.

Manipulating Phonemes

Manipulating phonemes consists of adding, deleting, and substituting phonemes. Phoneme addition is the process of adding a phoneme to a word to create a new word. For example, adding the phoneme /b/ to the beginning of the word “at” creates the word “bat.” Phoneme deletion is the process of removing a phoneme from a word to create a new word. For example, a student might remove the /b/ from the word “bat” to create the word “at.” Phoneme substitution is the process of replacing a phoneme in a word with another phoneme to create a new word. For example, changing the /b/ sound in the word “bat” to a /c/ sound creates the new word “cat.”

Phoneme substitution is a key part of developing phonemic awareness, which is the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in spoken language.

Rhyming Words

Most consider rhyming words as part of phonological awareness, and because phonemic awareness is under the phonological awareness umbrella, it is a phonological awareness skill. However, most would teach this earlier, when they are teaching phonological awareness skills. However, what makes a word rhyme? A word rhymes when the last vowel sound and everything after it sound the same. For example, the words “bat” and “cat” rhyme because they both end in the sounds /a/ and /t/. For this reason, a child needs to recognize the phonemes in a word to create words that rhyme.

References

Reading Rockets. (2026). Phonological and phonemic awareness: Introduction. https://www.readingrockets.org/reading-101/reading-101-learning-modules/course-modules/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness