Specific Phonological Awareness Skills

Phonological Awareness (PA) is a general term that refers to the understanding that sentences are made up of individual words and that words are made up of individual sounds. There are various skills that act as the building blocks that make up PA. 

There is a chronological progression from easy to difficult skills but they are not always acquired or mastered in a distinct step-by-step process - rather, as kids grow and learn, they are building listening and PA skills in many different areas. 

Rhyme

Recognizing rhyme is a skill that naturally appears around age 5 as children hear nursery rhymes and songs, listen to stories and play games that involve rhyming words. After they are able to recognize rhymes and distinguish them from words that don't rhyme, children develop the ability to generate their own rhymes. 

Example:

Easy: "Bat-dog-cat... which two words rhyme?"
(Answer: bat and cat) 

Difficult: "What rhymes with top?"
(Answer example: pop) 

Alliteration

When the first sounds of a word are the same, it's called alliteration. If children are able to recognize and produce alliteration, it means they are beginning to notice that words are made up of separate sounds. 

Example: 

Easy: "I'm going to say 2 words, tell me if they begin with the same sound... bike-bear"
(Answer: yes)

Difficult: "Listen to this word: dog. Now tell me another word that starts with the same sound."
(Answer example: dish) 

Syllable Segmentation

First, children develop the ability to segment sentences into words. Then, they are able to advance in more difficulty by segmenting words into syllables. Often, the strategy for learning syllables is clapping along to each syllable. 

Example:

Easy: "How many syllables are there in the word car?"
(Answer: 1) 

Difficult:  "How many syllables are there in the word education?"
(Answer: 4) 

Onset-Rime

Onset = the first sound of a word (initial phonological unit).
Rime = the group of letters that follows the onset, usually a vowel and final consonants (not to be confused with rhyme) 

Learning the onset and rime of a word helps children see common letter groupings among words. This assists them in decoding while reading and spelling while writing (note: not all words have onsets). 

Example: 

Easy: "What are the onset and rime of mat?" 
(Answer: onset = /m/ rime = "at") 

Difficult: "What are the onset and rime of shower?"
(Answer: onset = /sh/ rime = "ower") 

Isolation

Isolation refers to the listening skills of recognizing the individual sounds (phonemes) of a word. It's an understanding of which sounds appear in any particular position of a word. 

Example: 

Easy: "What sound do you hear at the beginning of the word nod?"
(Answer: /n/) 

Medium: "What sound do you hear at the end of the word cup?" 
(Answer: /p/) 

Difficult: "What sound do you hear in the middle of the word dad?" 
(Answer: /a/)

Deletion

If learners can recognize groups of sounds or individual sounds within words, the next step is to learning how to play with those sounds. Deletion refers to the ability to hear a word and then delete a part of that word to make a new word

Example: 

Easy: Word/Syllable Level "Say birthday without the day" 
(Answer: birth) 

Difficult: Phoneme/Sound Level "Say tall without the /t/ sound" 
(Answer: all) 

Blending

Blending refers to being able to put individual sounds together to make full words. Breaking a word up into sounds and recognizing the individual sounds of words prepares students for reading and spelling where they will encounter new words often at first. 

Example: 

Easy: "I'm going to break a word into sounds, tell me the word that these sounds make: /s/  /u/  /n/"  
(Answer: sun)

Difficult: Non-Words "I'm going to break a word into sounds, tell me the silly word that these sounds make: /f/ /r/ /o/ /p/" 
(Answer: frop) 

Put all the skills together and you've got phonological awareness! 

Definitions adapted from:

Gillon, G. T. (2007). Phonological awareness: From research to practice. Guilford Press.

Reading Rockets. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/helping/target/phonologicalphonemic

Settlow, L. & Jacovino, M. (2004). How to increase phonemic awareness in the classroom. Lanham, Md: ScarecrowEducation.