Before developing the ability to read, children start by developing an understanding of how sounds within words work. This allows them to understand that words are made up of individual sounds, also known as phonemes. It has been found that the skills that a child has in phonemic and phonological awareness can be an excellent way to predict the future success or struggle the child might face in reading.

Phonemic Awareness

As mentioned before, phonemic awareness is when an individual can identify, analyze, and use individual sounds when speaking. It also includes the ability to blend, stretch, and use other techniques to switch up the words. 

There are several different ways children demonstrate, such as by recognizing words that begin with the same or similar sounds. They will also demonstrate the ability to combine and blend different sounds in a word and segment or even break words into separate sounds. 

Phonological Awareness 

Phonological awareness is a critical literacy skill and allows children to work with and recognize the sounds used within their language. This type of awareness is built of various skills, such as the ability to identify rhyming words, identifying and counting syllables, segmentation of sentences, and even the ability to recognize alliterations. There are five different levels of phonological awareness, where the difficulty increases with each level.  

How Phonemic Awareness and Phonological Awareness are Interrelated Yet Different 

Often, people tend to confuse phonemic and phonological awareness to mean the same thing. However, it is essential to note that while the two are interrelated skills, they have varying natures. 

Phonemic Awareness Is Always Related To The Alphabetic Principle 

The alphabetic principle is the concept that each letter within the alphabet can represent the corresponding language’s sound. A child who does not have the skills to work with or even hear phenomes within spoken words will struggle to learn the skill to relate letters to phonemes while reading written words in the language they speak.  

Both Phonemic Awareness and Phonological Awareness Are Related to The Languages We Speak

Phonemic and phonological awareness are interrelated as they both work with spoken language. It is essentially the understanding that within our spoken language, the sounds work together to create words. 

Concluding Thoughts

A great way to quantify the ability to use phonemic and phonological awareness is by calculating their grades, final grades, or even their weighted grades. One should always seek ways to learn more about how children demonstrate different skills by joining education-forward online communities, such as The Tech Edvocate and The Edvocate.