Phonological awareness is the skill of recognizing and working with sounds perfectly. It can also be described as the ability to notice alliterations in a sentence. The phonological awareness process starts from noticing sounds then proceeding to pronounce and use them perfectly in a sentence. After children identify the rhyming words, they start coming up with rhymes of their own. This awareness is made up of different skills, starting from phonemic awareness, which involves separating words into sounds and join single sounds into words. Kids with phonological awareness can identify and create oral rhymes and organize words that possess the same initial sounds (Saiegh-Haddad, 2019). In some cases, children at higher risk of reading difficulties frequently possess low phonological and phonemic awareness levels.
Phonological awareness can be taught to children in various habits. The easiest way to teach these sounds is by working with rhyming words. It can be carried out as an exercise or can be played as a game to make learning livelier and more fun. There are several ways in which one can teach their kids phonetics. There are other means a teacher can incorporate phonological awareness in the learning process. They include reading plenty of books with rhyming language, writing different words, and asking the child to choose the word that does not rhyme, blending syllables, and generating sounds. In most cases, when exposed to a rich language environment, some children can attain phonological awareness on their own.
Phonological awareness is vital in comprehension as it provides the base for effective reading. A child that has gained full phonological awareness can learn the spelling and pronunciation of new words quickly. They do this by comparing previously learned words to the new ones. It also helps children with spelling as they can break down different words into syllables and speech sounds. Earlier achievement of phonological awareness can help to predict one’s later outcomes when it comes to spelling and fluent reading.
Reference
Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2019). What is phonological awareness in L2? Journal of Neurolinguistics, 50, 17-27.