How is phonological awareness defined?

Phonological awareness is defined as the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in language. This skill encompasses several aspects, including the recognition of syllables, rhymes, and individual phonemes, which are the smallest units of sound. Developing phonological awareness is crucial for young learners as it lays the foundation for reading and writing. It enables them to decode words by understanding how sounds correspond to letters and promotes spelling as they learn to manipulate sounds to form words.

This understanding is essential because it facilitates the development of reading skills; children who are proficient in phonological awareness can more easily blend phonemes to read and segment sounds to write. It is a distinct area of literacy development that must be fostered before moving to orthographic knowledge (the relationship between sounds and their written forms) and other literacy skills related to spelling and grammar.