Phonological awareness, identified by the Early Literacy Panel (2008) as a predictor of later reading success, refers to a child’s ability to recognize and manipulate the different units of oral language. Children who develop phonological awareness during their early years are on the right path to becoming proficient readers. Being phonologically aware means that children understand the various components of spoken language, such as words, syllables, onsets, and rimes and can playfully manipulate these components. This skill is crucial for building a strong foundation for early literacy development.
Phonemic awareness is an auditory skill and involves the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words.
Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that includes all units of spoken language. Included under this umbrella is phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is an auditory skill and involves the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. Children must understand that a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound. The English language has approximately 44 phonemes. Some words have one phoneme, while others have more than one. For example, the word we has two phonemes (/w/ /e/); sheep has three phonemes (/sh/ /ē/ /p/), and stop has four phonemes (/s/ /t/ /ŏ/ /p/). As part of phonemic awareness instruction, children are asked to work with phonemes in various capacities. This can include identifying phonemes, blending them to form words, segmenting words into phonemes, and deleting, adding, or substituting phonemes to make new words. Asking children to change the /m/ sound in the word mat to a /c/ sound is an example of substituting phonemes to make the new word cat.
Instruction in phonological awareness can begin as early as Prekindergarten and should continue through second grade. Students who are experiencing reading difficulties in later grades may benefit from instruction in this domain. For PreK and Kindergarten, instruction should primarily focus on developing phonological sensitivity (Brady, 2020). Phonological sensitivity includes the ability to recognize and manipulate larger units of spoken language. This lays a strong foundation for phonemic awareness. An ideal time to begin phonemic awareness instruction is the middle of Kindergarten (Brady, 2020). According to the National Reading Panel (2000), phonemic awareness instruction should not exceed twenty hours over the course of the school year, with each lesson or session lasting no more than thirty minutes.
Music can be an effective tool for teaching phonological and phonemic awareness due to its inherent rhythms, melodies, and rhymes. Songs with repetitive patterns and rhyming words help children recognize and predict structures of oral language. This helps young children as they begin to develop their understanding of how sounds fit together to form words. The playful nature of music makes learning these skills enjoyable and engaging.
When children sing songs, they practice articulating words clearly, which supports the development of spoken language
Words
The largest level of spoken language is the word level. Phonological awareness includes the recognition of words. Asking children to identify when two words are the same or different demonstrates an understanding of this initial level of spoken language. Incorporating music into a child’s daily routine can positively impact this early stage of phonological development. By simply exposing children to songs and musical activities, children are exposed to new words and phrases in a fun and engaging context, making it easier for them to absorb and retain language. When children sing songs, they practice articulating words clearly, which supports the development of spoken language. Including music in a child’s environment (e.g. home, school, church) not only brings the joy of music to young learners but also significantly contributes to their understanding and mastery of word-level spoken language skills.
Rhyming
Rhyming is a fundamental component of phonological awareness, and songs with rhyming lyrics can significantly support students in recognizing and producing rhyming words. Teachers can support this learning experience by encouraging students to identify the rhyming words within these songs and further create new verses incorporating their own rhymes. For instance, a teacher might encourage a sing along using a nursery rhyme, pausing at the end of a line to ask students to predict the rhyming word, and then challenge students to come up with additional words that rhyme with the target words. This interactive approach not only reinforces phonological awareness but also fosters creativity and engagement among students.
Syllables
Syllables play an important role in phonological awareness as they represent an intermediate level of sound structure between whole words and phonemes. A syllable is a word part that has one vowel in it. The word doorbell has two syllables, door and bell. The word elbow also has two syllables, el and bow. Recognizing and segmenting syllables in words helps children break down spoken language into more manageable parts. Teaching children to break up words into syllables out loud will make it easier for them to hold onto chunks of words when they attempt to sound out words in print.
A simple yet effective way to use music to help students recognize and segment syllables is through the use of familiar songs where each beat corresponds to a syllable
A simple yet effective way to use music to help students recognize and segment syllables is through the use of familiar songs where each beat corresponds to a syllable. By doing this, teachers can help students to internalize the rhythm of language and understand how words are segmented by syllables. The well-known lullaby “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is a great song for an activity like this.
Songs that involve clapping or tapping out syllables can also reinforce syllable segmentation skills. Once again, teachers should select songs where each beat corresponds to a syllable. An activity to use in the classroom might include singing a familiar song and instructing students to clap for each syllable, such as hel-lo (clap, clap) or bas-ket (clap, clap). This practice not only makes syllable segmentation interactive but also helps students develop a sense of rhythm and timing in language.
Onsets & Rimes
After mastering the syllable level of spoken language, children progress to understanding onsets and rimes. An onset is the beginning sound in a word or the part of that comes before the vowel. A rime is the vowel and everything that follows the beginning sound. In the word sing, s is the onset and ing is the rime and in the word bring, br is the onset and ing is the rime.
Onset and rime activities can be effectively integrated into early literacy instruction through the use of songs.
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Dr. Samantha Lazich Caesar is an associate professor of reading/literacy at Concordia University Chicago. She also serves as a consultant for schools, where she provides professional development and coaching to teachers and school leaders.
References:
Brady, Susan. A 2020 perspective on research findings on alphabetics (phonemic awareness and phonics) implications for instruction. The Reading League Journal, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 20–28.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS: (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
National Early Literacy Panel. Developing Early Literacy: A Scientific Synthesis of Early Literacy Development and Implications for Intervention. National Institute for Literacy, 2008.