Phonological Awareness: FAQ

We have spent some time talking about phonological awareness. If you missed the basics, go back and catch up by reading these posts. 

What is Phonological Awareness?

Tips for Teaching Phonological Awareness

Making the Most of Phonemic Awareness

What does Phonemic Awareness Mean?

Assessments for Phonemic Awareness

If you are all caught up, let’s dive in! Today, I am diving into answering some of the questions I get MOST in my inbox. 

What’s the difference between phonological awareness, phonemic awareness?

Phonological Awareness is a skill that allows students to recognize and manipulate sounds of the spoken language. Most people think that reading instruction should begin with letters and sounds. But most kids are preparing to read LONG before they learn their letters and sounds. Reading actually starts when kids begin to pay attention to the sounds of spoken words. The skills covered under phonological awareness are

• Sentence Segmentation

• Rhyming

• Syllables

• Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness is a component that falls under the term phonological awareness and it is the highest level. Phonemic Awareness includes:

• Phoneme Isolation

• Blending

• Segmenting

• Addition

• Deletion

• Substitution

Who should get phonological awareness instruction?

Ideally, phonological awareness is done in grades pk-2. Unfortunately, we cannot assume that these students received and mastered this instruction. It is important to make sure your students do not have any gaps in this instruction, regardless of their age and grade. I am currently working with a small group of 4th graders who still need this instruction.

How do I know what to teach and where to start?

The best place to start is with a quick assessment. I use this assessment and the continuum to decide exactly where instruction should start. You can download them both for free here!

Should I teach phonological awareness in small group or whole group?

It is a common misconception that phonological awareness should only be taught in small group. Let me tell you a little secret! You can teach it in both small group and whole group. Just remember: Whole Group is about EXPOSURE and small group is about MASTERY.

What Strategies do you have for students who can’t hear all the sounds when they are trying to segment and blend?

Some kiddos struggle to hold onto all of the sounds when they are trying to segment and blend. Here are a couple of my tried and true strategies:

• Provide picture support- If I am trying to get a student to segment and blend the word /cat/ I will sometimes provide a picture of a cat. This way, after they segment the word, they have an anchor to support their blending. It is important to note that pictures should be used as a scaffold.

• Continuous blending- Continuous blending is a strategy used to support students who struggle to “hang on” to the sounds as they practice blending and segmenting. Here is how it works:

  • When we practice continuous blending, we sound out words with no stopping In continuous blending, words are “sounded out” without stopping. For example, if a child is sounding out the word /ham/, it might sound something like this hhhhhhhaaaaaaaammmmm vs. /h/ /a/ /m/. In the first example, the sounds are held for 2 seconds without a break. In the second example, the sounds are said with a break in between. Providing this type of scaffolding, will offer students support in blending individual sounds. This scaffolding offers critical support in blending individual sounds to make a word.

I hope this post was helpful! What other questions do you have about phonological awareness?