Developmental Sequence Of Phonological Skills

Phonological awareness covers the child’s ability to recognize and use the spoken parts of sentences and words. The following article provides information on the main stages of the development of phonological skills in children.

Main Stages Of The Development Of Phonological Skills In Children

The developmental sequence of phonological skills typically progresses through several stages, each building on the previous one. Here are the main stages:

Word Awareness: This is the ability to track words in sentences. It’s a basic skill that helps children understand that sentences are made up of individual words.

At the simplest level, this refers to the ability to identify words in a sentence. For example, as students say, “I like cookies”, they clap each time they say a word. A higher word awareness skill is the ability to blend two words like ‘book’ and ‘store’ into a single word, ‘bookstore’. Then comes segmentation or the ability to differentiate smaller words like ‘book’ and ‘store’ in a big word, ‘bookstore’. The highest skill level in word awareness is deletion. So a teacher might ask students to say ‘bookstore’ and then tell them to say ‘bookstore’ without the ‘store’. If children are able to say ‘book’, then it indicates mastery of deletion level in word awareness skill.

Responsiveness to Rhyme and Alliteration: This involves recognizing and enjoying rhyming words and alliterative phrases. Children start to notice that some words sound similar at the end or the beginning.
Syllable Awareness: This is the ability to count, tap, blend, or segment words into syllables. It’s an important step in understanding the structure of words.

At the simplest blending level, children are able to put smaller word parts together to make a whole word like ‘pock’ and ‘et’ for ‘pocket’. Next comes segmentation which children are able to identify syllables perhaps by clapping to poc and ket in the word pocket. Then comes deletion level. So a teacher might ask students to say pocket and then tells them to say pocket without the et. If children are able to say pock, then it shows high syllable awareness.

Onset and Rime Manipulation: This involves recognizing and producing rhyming words by understanding that rhyming words have the same rime (the vowel and the letters that follow it in a syllable).

The third stage of phonological skills involves being able to recognize rhymes in worlds like pit, sit, etc. Next children are able to generate rhymes on their own like hit, bit. Then comes categorization when children are able to recognize which rhyme does not belong in a group, like bun in the group of hot, dot, bun, lot

Phoneme Awareness: This is the most advanced stage and involves identifying and manipulating individual sounds (phonemes) in words.

Phonemes are the basic units of a spoken language and awareness that language is composed of these small sounds is termed phonemic awareness. The basic level of phoneme awareness is isolation of individual sounds, like “what is the first sound in pan?” (/p/), “what is the last sound in pan?” (/n/) or “what is the middle sound in pan?” (/a/). Then comes the ability to identify a particular sound among disparate sounds, like “Which word has the same first sound as car: fan, corn, or map?” (corn) followed by the ability to categorize sounds like “Which word does not belong? bus, ball, house?” (house), including:

Identifying and matching initial, final, and middle sounds in words.
Segmenting and producing initial, final, and middle sounds.
Blending sounds into words.
Segmenting words into individual phonemes.

Understanding these stages helps in sequencing teaching tasks from easy to more difficult, ensuring that children develop strong phonological skills that are critical for reading and writing.