Do you know 5 fantastic phonological awareness skills that are needed for all readers? These phonological awareness skills are the basis of reading and need a lot of practice before kiddos ever need to learn letter names and sight words. The skills are word awareness, syllables, onset-rime, rhyming/alliteration, and phonemic awareness. If you have kiddos struggling to read, step back and and ask if they know phonological awareness skills.

The lack of these 5 phonological awareness skills causes so many problems for readers.

Do you know 5 fantastic phonological awareness skills meanings?

1. Word Awareness-Tracking words in sentences. Here are few things to look for:

• number of spaces,
• number of words,
• number of lines,
• what and where do you find at the beginning (capital letter),
• what and where is the end (punctuation),

You will be surprised at how many of your students struggle with a few of these concepts. Bring a few up each time you work in guided reading to help develop these skills. You can also do it with poetry. Check out how I use word awareness with poetry here. Check out how I show word awareness with👇🏾 Humpty Dumpty.

2. Responsiveness to rhyme and alliteration during word play-Enjoying and reciting rhyming words or alliterative phrases in familiar storybooks or nursery rhymes. This is not about supplying rhyming words. Rhyming poems and nursery rhymes are a great way to practice. Meanwhile check out Rhyming Books and Games for a few ideas.

3. Syllable Awareness- Counting the parts of the word. Check out the steps on my PA Skills Page. This fun game makes syllable segmentation fun. 4. Onset and Rime Manipulation- The ability to produce a rhyming word depends on understanding that rhyming words have the same rime. A rime is the part of a syllable that has the vowel and the consonants after it. The onset is the beginning of the word thus it can be changed.
Recognizing a rhyme is much easier than producing a rhyme. Therefore, kiddos start with just finding the words in poems you read and them move to producing more rhyming words. Once kiddos start to read words, they can sort words by onset and rime to develop this skill with phonics..

Do You Know The Most Important Phonological Awareness Skill

5. Phonemic Awareness- Because it is the most difficult phonological awareness skill it takes a lot of practice. PA manipulates the smallest sounds in speech called phonemes. Here is the order from easiest to hardest: 

I hope you’ve found my tips helpful. If you have any additional tips that might help a teacher, please share it with us!

Make everyday magical,

Debora from Teach Magically