Phonological Awareness

is a broad term that refers to the ability to separate spoken sentences into words, and spoken words into syllables.
It includes identifying and working with:

•     oral rhymes (mad – bad)
•     syllables (carrot – clap /car/ /rot/)
•     onsets and rimes (sip – onset = /s/, rime = /ip/)
•     individual phonemes (or sounds) (sun = /s/ /u/ /n/)

Phonemic Awareness is similar to phonological awareness however it refers to ability to notice, think about and work with individual speech sounds (phonemes) within words.  A phoneme is the smallest part of sound in a spoken word.

When attempting to improve a child’s phonological and phonemic awareness skills, the initial emphasis should be on developing the awareness of the structure of words (syllables etc.) and sounds. The student needs to be “tuned in” to sounds – this is critical for literacy development.

This skill can be developed through classroom phonological awareness games, more structured activities, and informal phonological awareness games that can be played at home or in the car.

An information sheet can be downloaded here.

More information on teaching people with dyslexia and other SLDs: