Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: what's the difference?
I often refer to phonological and phonemic awareness in conversations with parents. It is important to understand what these skills encompass because they are absolutely critical in reading development. In fact, phonemic awareness makes up one of the five main "pillars" in reading. The other four are: phonics (understanding of the alphabetic principle and assigning sounds to letter names), fluency (appropriate rate), comprehension (understanding and meaning making) and vocabulary. Phonological awareness is an umbrella term for all emerging literacy skills that involve hearing various aspects of spoken language. This includes understanding of one-to-one correspondence counting words in a short sentence, breaking words into syllables (or parts), and rhyming. There are two parts to a rhyme: the onset and the rime. The onset is the first sound in isolation and the rime is the rest of the word including a vowel and ending sound(s). For example, /h/-/am/ or /s/-/ock/. All of thes...