Language Therapy For Children

Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness refers to a group of pre-reading skills that involve the ability to analyze the sound structure of words.  Identifying the number of syllables in a word and recognizing rhyme are part of early developing phonological awareness.  Later, children are able to detect individual sounds in words and manipulate those sounds – this is called phonemic awareness.  A child’s phonemic awareness is a powerful predictor of the likelihood of reading and spelling success. If a child is not meeting phonological awareness milestones, our SLPs will help them understand that words can be broken up into smaller parts, learn to hear and identify these syllables and sounds and manipulate (blend, add and remove) these component parts to ensure reading and spelling success.