Phonological Awareness and Pre-Reading Skills
What are Phonological Awareness and
Pre-Reading Skills?
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds, syllables, and words in spoken language. This essential pre-reading skill plays a key role in literacy development and effective communication. Speech therapy can help children understand how words and sounds work together.
At Hummingbird Pediatric Therapies, our expert speech-language pathologists (SLPs) provide individualized support to help children build the communication and pre-reading skills they need to take their next steps toward literacy.
Key Components of Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness progresses from recognizing larger language units (words) to smaller ones (phonemes). Essential skills include:
Word Awareness
Phonological awareness begins with awareness of words. A child must understand that sentences consist of separate words. For example: “I eat chocolate cake” — “I” / “eat” / “chocolate” / “cake”
Syllable Awareness
Then at the syllable level, children will then develop the ability to segment and blend syllables within words:
- Segmenting: Breaking words into syllables ex: “chi-cken”
- Blending: Combining separate syllables into words ex: What word does “pan-cake” make: “pancake”
Rhyming & Onset-Rime Awareness
A child must also develop the ability to recognize and produce rhyming words:
- Identifying rhyming words ex: “cat” and “hat”
- Understanding onset-rime ex: “cat” = onset “c” + rime “at” & “block” = onset “bl” and rime “ock”
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Phonemic Awareness and Manipulation - Sound-Level Awareness
Phonemes are not the same as letters. There are 44 phonemes in English and only 26 letters. Advanced phonemic awareness skills include:
- Identifying initial & final sounds:
- Which word starts with /s/? “Sun” or “Car”?
- Isolating sounds in words to the beginning, middle or end:
- Where is /t/ in “hat”? Beginning, middle, or end?
- Blending phonemes together into words:
- Combining sounds to form words (e.g., /c/ /a/ /t/ → “cat”)
- Producing phoneme addition, deletion, or substitution in a word:
- Addition: Tell me “in”, now add /w/ at the beginning → “win”.
- Deletion: Tell me “snail” without the /s/ → “nail”.
- Substitution: Tell me “top”, now change the /t/ to /m/ → “mop”.
Signs Your Child May Need Phonological Awareness Support
Parents may notice certain signs at home that indicate a child could benefit from speech therapy to strengthen phonological awareness skills, such as:
- Difficulty recognizing or producing rhyming words
- Trouble breaking words into syllables or blending syllables into words
- Challenges isolating the first or last sound in a word
- Difficulty blending sounds together to form words
- Struggles with early reading and spelling tasks
Conditions That May Indicate a Need for Support
Certain speech, language, and learning conditions may impact phonological awareness, including:
- Speech Sound Disorders – difficulty pronouncing sounds correctly
- Language Delays – trouble understanding or using language
- Dyslexia – persistent struggles with reading and spelling
- Auditory Processing Disorders – difficulty distinguishing between similar sounds
If your child exhibits any of these signs or has a diagnosed condition affecting phonological awareness, early intervention is best.
Get Started with Support
Early intervention is key to your child’s literacy success. Our expert SLPs at Hummingbird Pediatric Therapies provide customized therapy to develop essential pre-reading and speech skills.