Phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same. Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that includes word awareness, syllable awareness, onset-rime awareness, and phonemic awareness (Honig, 2008). Phonological awareness specifically has to do with sound, as implied in its root word “phon”. Phonological awareness tasks begin with more simple activities and progress in difficulty, with the most difficult activities being phonemic awareness tasks.
Phonological awareness activities include:
Rhyming:
cat rhymes with bat and sat
Alliteration:
Doug the dog dug a ditch
Sentence Segmentation:
“The book is new” consists of four words
Syllable Awareness:
can/dy has two syllables and um/brel/la has three
Onset and Rime: Onset is the initial consonant sound or sound and the rime is the letters that follow
hat- h is the onset
hat- at is the rime
Phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are made of individual sounds and the sounds can be manipulated (Griffith & Olson, 1992). It is the ability to hear the smallest sounds in a word when it is broken up and distinguish the individual phonemes (Lindsey, Kuehl, & Mesmer, 2020). This is the most advanced skill in phonological awareness.
Phonemic awareness activities include:
Phoneme blending:
/p/ /a/ /t/ says “pat”
Phoneme segmentation
“pat” consists of the sounds /p/ /a/ /t/
Phoneme isolate
The first sound in “pat” is /p/, the middle sound is /a/, and the last sound is /t/
Phoneme manipulation
Say “pat” now take away the /p/ - “at” is left
Say “pat” now change the /p/ to a /c/ and you get- “cat”
Phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are both important skills for reading and spelling. Phonological awareness is a broader concept that includes the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds within words. Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness that specifically refers to the ability to manipulate individual phonemes, or sounds. It is imperative for parents and teachers to help children develop these early reading skills.
Sources:
Griffith, P. L., & Olson, M. W. (1992). Phonemic awareness helps beginning readers break the code. Reading Teacher, 45(7), 516-523.
Honig, B., Diamond, L., Gutlohn, L., & Cole, C. L. (2008). Teaching reading sourcebook (2nd ed.). Arena Press.
Lindsey, J. B., Kuehl, R., & Mesmer, H. A. (2020). What’s hot in literacy? Phonics and phonemic awareness. Literacy Research, Practice and Evaluation.
Phonological awareness: What is it and how does it relate to phonemic awareness? (2022). National Center on Improving Literacy.
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