Importance of phonological awareness

Phonological awareness signifies a child’s ability to use ‘words’ and ‘sounds’ appropriately. A kid with sound phonological knowledge can divide any word–for instance ‘cow’–into individual sounds such as ‘c-o-w’.

Apart from laying the foundations for good reading skills, phonological awareness helps in building many other skills. It enables kids to

• Identify rhyme words, for instance, ‘Tree’ and ‘Three’
• Break, combine, and remove syllables
• Identify, combine, break, and remove sounds in a word
• Use extra sounds in a word and so on

Sound phonological knowledge also enables children to learn and use various alphabetic codes. Usually, kids start listening to their parents and teachers when they read aloud and slowly, they learn to read. Slowly, they learn how to recognize several sounds in one word, how to use words in sentences and so on. Therefore, if kids are encouraged to participate in various word playing games, it will sharpen their knowledge of recognizing various patterns in words.

Kids with good phonological awareness gain expertise in breaking words into different phonemes and combining phonemes into words. This letter-sound knowledge enables them to read and make words in an appropriate manner. So, if phonological knowledge is imparted to students at the kindergarten level, it will lead to reading success. In addition, this knowledge also helps students be good at spelling and vocabulary.

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