Phonemic Awareness

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Phonemic Awareness – A Foundational Skill for Reading Success
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and analyze discreet sounds. Specifically, it’s the cognitive skill that allows us to segment and link speech sounds to letters in words. Phonemic awareness is a purely auditory process, which does not require us to read the actual words.

Phonemic awareness typically occurs at the pre-reading stage of development. While most young children master the spoken language by kindergarten, they do not understand that speech is derived from discrete words. Additionally, these children have no cognitive concept that words are made up of syllables, which are broken into even smaller units called “phonemes.”

Phonemes are small units of speech related to the letters of the alphabet. For example, in the word “nut,” a child needs to hear and segment three phonemes: /n/, /u/, and /t/. If a child has difficulty hearing or segmenting these sounds, he or she will struggle with early reading acquisition and ongoing reading fluency. This awareness that speech is made up of discreet, segmented sounds is now considered a major factor in reading success.

Phonemic Awareness – An Important Predictor Supported by the Research
A ten-year study by the Institute of Health and Child Development (1985-1995) found that 88% of reading difficulties were grounded in weak phonemic awareness. Alternatively, strong phonemic awareness not only made initial reading acquisition easier, it contributed to increased reading fluency throughout life.

A long line of research now agrees that phonemic awareness is the best predictor of the ease of early reading acquisition, better than IQ, vocabulary, and listening comprehension. (Stanovich, 1993-94)

"One of the most compelling and well-established findings in the research on beginning reading is the important relationship between phonemic awareness and reading acquisition." (Kame'enui, et. al., 1997)

The research further suggests that by the age of five, 80% of children have phonemic awareness skills, while 20% don’t. Without proper assessment and training, those who lack this cognitive skill at the age of five are likely to lack it at the ages of 15, 25, and 65 too.

Phonemic Awareness – A Powerful Approach to Assessment and Training
At LearningRx, we understand that phonemic awareness is a foundational cognitive skill for reading success. Without strong phonemic awareness, reading fluency and comprehension will always be a struggle. We specialize in identifying weak phonemic skills and customizing one-on-one cognitive training to strengthen those weaknesses. During 18 years of development, LearningRx has helped thousands of students record dramatic improvement in reading and comprehension by returning to foundational cognitive skills such as phonemic awareness. Does your student struggle with reading at grade level? Does your student avoid reading aloud? Does your student have a history of spelling and vocabulary difficulties? Does your student spend extra time with homework? If so, we encourage you to complete a basic phonemic awareness assessment today. This will give you a better understanding of your child’s cognitive skills relative to his or her age. Based on the outcome of this simple evaluation, you may see the need to schedule a more comprehensive cognitive skills assessment at one of our many LearningRx centers throughout the United States. If you’re ready to tackle your child’s reading difficulties, we encourage you to learn more about phonemic awareness assessment today.

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