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Phonological Awareness SkillsPhonological awareness is the understanding that oral language can bebroken down into smaller parts (for example, sentences into words, words into syllables, syllables into sounds) and that we can manipulated those parts.One can manipulate these parts in many ways such as blending sounds tocreate words, segmenting words (such as breaking down compound words),and creating rhymes to name just a few.

Phonological awareness skills are necessary to grasp written language.Children who are learning how to read must be able to understand and

manipulate the structure of words in order to benefit from readinginstruction. Research has indicated that good phonological awareness skillsat the Kindergarten level is a strong indicator for reading success later inschool and that this relationship remains consistent. Thus children whostruggle with these early skills may have difficulty with reading and spellingthroughout their school years.

Signs of weakness in phonological processing may include difficulty with:1) Recognizing and producing rhyming words or patterns2) Orally breaking down words into syllables or sounds3) Identifying whether a specific sound occurs at the beginning, middle

or end of a word4) Identifying the number of sounds in a word5) Manipulating the sound within the word6) Blending phonemes to make a word7) Comprehension of letter-sound relationships8) Decoding words9) Rapid-naming tasks10) Repeating multisyllabic words

If you have concerns about your child's phonological skills you should have aspeech-language evaluation completed to determine if they would benefit

from therapy designed to improve their phonological awareness skills.Research has indicated that carefully planned instruction can develop thesecritical phonological awareness skills and thus have a positive impact on thechild's reading and spelling skills. Do not wait until they are in school andstruggling with reading. There is a great deal of research that indicates thattherapy designed to address phonological awareness skills is beneficial forchildren as young as 4 years of age and that if therapy has begun before thechild has learned to read that it assists the child in acquiring reading skills.

Independentspeech.com ~ 28731 N 25 th Glen, Phoenix, AZ 85085 ~ 877-480-7913

Independent Speech, LLC

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To speak with a speech pathologist about your child's phonologicalawareness skills, please feel free to call us at 1-877-480-7913 or visit ourwebsite at www.independentspeech.com to learn more about online speechtherapy and how it may benefit your child.

Research Articles(Adams, 1990; Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer, & Carter, 1974).(Ehri & Wilce, 1980, 1985; Liberman et al., 1974; Perfetti, Beck, Bell, &

Hughes, 1987)(Calfee, Lindamood, & Lindamood, 1973; Shankweiler et al., 1995).(Ball & Blachman, 1991; Bradley & Bryant, 1985; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley,

1989, 1991; O'Connor, Jenkins, Leicester, & Slocum, 1993).(Bradley & Bryant, 1985; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991).(Smith et al. 1998)

Independentspeech.com ~ 28731 N 25 th Glen, Phoenix, AZ 85085 ~ 877-480-7913

http://www.independentspeech.com/http://www.independentspeech.com/