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 5/19/2008 Development of Phonological Awareness Skill Linda R. Schreiber, CCC-SLP | |||||||||||
| Introduction The literature is replete with evidence of the value of intact phonological awareness skills as a foundation for speech, language, and literacy development. Phonological awareness has been shown to have a direct relationship to reading achievement (Adams, 1990; Bishop & Adams, 1990; Blachman, 1994, 1997; Catts, 1993; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000; Stanovich, 2000), to written language achievement (Bradley & Bryant, 1985; Clarke-Klein & Hodson, 1995), to the development of expressive speech and language (Bird, Bishop, & Freeman, 1995; Carroll & Snowling, 2004; Gillon, 2000, 2002, 2005; Larrivee and Catts, 1999; Rvachew, Ohberg, Grawburg, & Heyding, 2003; Stackhouse, 1992; Webster and Plante, 1992), and to the development of the speech processing system (Stackhouse & Wells, 1997). In spite of the importance of phonological awareness skill in young learners, the typical development of these skills is infrequently studied as part of university coursework. In addition, veteran educators (including classroom teachers, reading specialists, speech-language pathologists, and learning disabilities teachers) who have been teaching prior to the release of the National Reading Panel Report (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) and recent research on the value of phonological awareness, may have had little exposure to the development of these important foundation skills. This article presents a definition of phonological awareness, differentiates terminology, delineates the phonological awareness subskills, and presents the sequence of development of skills and age of typical emergence as is suggested in the literature. Definition Phonological awareness is an awareness of the ways 'in which words and syllables can be divided into smaller units" (Goswami & Bryant, 1990, p. 2) or an awareness of the sound system of language that allows an individual to make judgments about, or manipulate sounds and syllables in words (Catts, 2000). A similar term, metaphonological awareness, refers to the individual's ability to talk about and explain his or her use or understanding of the phonological awareness skill. In rhyming for example, a child may rhyme in vocal play but not be aware of the fact that he or she is rhyming. The child's skill becomes metaphonological, if when asked how two words (that rhyme) are alike, the child responds with the fact that they rhyme. Goswami and Bryant describe three levels of phonological awareness of sound within words: syllable awareness, intra-syllable awareness, and phonemic awareness. Intra-syllables are the units we often refer to as onset and rime. Phonemes are the smallest unit of meaningful sound. So for example in the word wishing:
Phonological awareness is an umbrella term used to describe the overall awareness of how words and syllables can be divided into smaller units. Phonological awareness is comprised of the following skills:
Phonemic awareness instruction can be confused with phonics instruction. Phonics refers to teaching students letter-sound relationships or the relationship among graphemes. Children may be taught to manipulate sounds in speech without any letters so phonemic awareness instruction is not phonics instruction. Phonemic awareness can also be confused with auditory discrimination. Auditory discrimination refers to the ability to recognize whether two spoken words are the same or different, as in dog and log vs. dog and dog. Development of Skills According to Stackhouse and Wells (1997), children develop awareness of the sounds and structure of their language by developing the speech processing system, although an intact processing system is necessary for the development of phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is for the purpose of speaking and also allows children to match their spoken language with the written form of language (i.e., through orthographic and letter knowledge). According to Stackhouse and Wells, phonological awareness skills develop along a continuum, with children relying on their auditory skills for the early developing phonological awareness skills (syllable segmentation, blending, and rhyme), then relying on their articulatory skills (how they produce the word) for the middle stages of phonological awareness tasks (sound blending and sound segmentation), and finally relying on their orthographic knowledge for the upper-level skills of sound manipulation and cluster segmentation. Most children develop phonological awareness incidentally without any instruction (Stackhouse, 1997), though the skills do not necessarily develop in a linear fashion (Sterling-Orth, 2004). In other words, children do not master or become proficient at one skill before developing the next skill. However, phonological awareness skills have a general progression of development and there is flexibility within that progression. The following is the general progression of development:  Stackhouse (1997) refines this progression and suggests the sequence is the following:  Also, historically the debate has been whether phonological awareness is a prerequisite of literacy or a consequence of literacy. But researchers now believe a reciprocal relationship exists between the two. In other words, phonological awareness skill provides the foundation for literacy achievement but once children begin to read, their phonological awareness becomes even more explicit through their experiences with text. Phonological awareness is not dependent on literacy skill as evidenced by preschool nonreaders' ability to segment words into syllables and to identify the initial sounds in words. These youngsters seem to rely on their speech production skills to tell the syllables they hear in words or the first sound they hear in a word. Syllable Blending and Syllable Segmentation Although all phonological awareness tasks might predict literacy achievement, Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer, and Carter (1974) found that the early developing skill of syllable segmentation is not as strong a predictor of later literacy achievement. However, both spelling and reading require syllable blending skills and spelling is more closely dependent on segmentation skills (Ehri, 2000). The general sequence of emergence of syllable awareness is as follows:  The skills associated with syllable awareness and the general age of development* in typical learners are shown in Table 1, with a description of the skill and an example. Table 1 Syllable Awareness  Click Here to View Large Format of Table 1 (PDF) In addition, the following observations are noteworthy:
Some researchers have shown that the development of rhyme does not necessarily lead to the development of phonemic awareness skills (Martin & Byrne, 2002). MacLean, Bryant, and Bradley (1987) found that rhyming is not as powerful a predictor of literacy achievement as later-developing phonological awareness tasks. However, Muter, Hulme, Snowling, and Taylor (1998) found that ability to rhyme showed a predictive effect on spelling rather than on reading. Goswami and Bryant (1990) found that proficiency in rhyming may be a precursor to reading words that are similar (word families) and to spelling more proficiently. Rhyme seems to play a role in the development of phonological awareness although not all children master the skill of rhyming before being successful at phonemic awareness tasks. Children with expressive phonological impairments may find rhyming tasks extremely difficult (Hulme & Snowling, 1992; Hulme et al., 2002; Snowling, Goulandris, & Stackhouse, 1994). Although rhyming skills may improve over time, for some children with expressive phonological impairments difficulty in rhyme will persist (Stackhouse, 1989). The stages of rhyme are described by Sterling-Orth (2004) as:  The skills associated with rhyme awareness and the general age of development* in typical learners are shown in Table 2, with a description of the skill and an example. Table 2 Rhyme Awareness  Click Here to View Large Format of Table 2 (PDF) In addition, the following observations are noteworthy:
The most powerful predictors of literacy success appear to be phoneme segmentation and phoneme manipulation skills according to Adams (1990). Muter (1996) found that phoneme segmentation skills and letter knowledge is a predictor of children's ability to sound out words that are unfamiliar. In 2000, following the No Child Left Behind Act (2002), Congress commissioned the National Reading Panel (NRP) to review and analyze literature to determine the components of effective literacy instruction. One of the components chosen for study by the NRP was phonemic awareness and that was for several reasons. Correlational studies identified phonemic awareness and letter knowledge as the two best school-entry predictors of how well children will learn to read during the first two years of instruction (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). The NRP's literature search for studies relevant to phonemic awareness instruction resulted in 52 studies. The results of the NRP meta-analysis showed that teaching children to manipulate phonemes in words was highly effective; effectiveness was measured under several teaching conditions with diverse learners from various grade and age levels. The results confirmed that teaching phonemic awareness to children significantly improves their reading. Additionally, the NRP concluded that the instruction in phonemic awareness caused the improvement in phonemic awareness, and consequently resulted in improvement in reading and spelling. These findings were replicated. Phonemic awareness instruction also helped children learn to spell, and the effects lasted well beyond the end of training. However, the NRP reports that the instruction was not effective for improving spelling in disabled readers. The instructional strategies studied were explicit instruction and systematic instruction. The instruction taught children to manipulate phonemes using letters, focused on one or two types of phoneme manipulations rather than multiple types, and taught children in small groups. Phonemic awareness is the highest level of phonological awareness and the last skill to develop (Catts, 1991). Following is the general progression of phonemic awareness development.  Table 3 Phonemic Awareness  Click Here to View Large Format of Table3 (PDF) The following information regarding development of phonemic awareness is also noteworthy:
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Assessment and instruction for phonemic awareness and word recognition skills. In H. Catts & A. Kamhi (Eds.), Reading research: Advances in theory and practice (pp. 159-198). New York: Academic Press. Webster, P., & Plante, A. (1992). Effects of phonological impairment on word, syllable, and phoneme segmentation and reading. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 23, 176-182. | |||||||||||
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