As an educator, and even before my academic training, I witnessed different students’ experiences with learning to read. Some children learned to read more readily, while others struggled. My desire to prevent reading difficulties inspired me to embark on a career in research. This led to work contributing to our current understanding of the ways children learn to read—and how we can support them. The significance of phonological awareness was the subject of my dissertation for which I won the International Reading Association Dissertation of the Year Award in 1988 and continued to be a focus of my research program. Phonological awareness is a cornerstone of early literacy development, yet it often remains a misunderstood and misapplied concept in beginning reading instruction.
Phonological awareness refers to a broad set of skills involving the recognition and manipulation of the sound structure of spoken language (Cunningham & Zibulsky, 2014). This includes the ability to perceive and manipulate the sounds of words, syllables, onsets and rimes, and phonemes. To understand why phonological awareness is important and its interconnected elements, educators often turn to the “phonological awareness umbrella” as a metaphor. This blog explores this metaphor in depth, delving into the skills it encompasses and actionable strategies for classroom instruction.
The phonological awareness umbrella
The umbrella metaphor is used to describe phonological awareness because it effectively illustrates how various skills work together to form a cohesive whole. Imagine an umbrella with several panels—each panel represents a specific skill, such as recognizing words, syllables, onset and rime, and phonemes. These panels are interconnected, forming the broader concept of phonological awareness.
The umbrella also serves as a symbol of protection and support. Just as an umbrella shields you from rain, phonological awareness protects students from struggles in reading by giving them foundational tools to perceive and manipulate language sounds to decode unknown words in print. Students build a strong foundation for reading success by mastering the skills under this umbrella.
Exploring the skills under the umbrella of phonological awareness
Phonological awareness is often divided into four main components: word awareness, syllable awareness, onset and rime awareness, and phonemic awareness. Although not necessarily developed in a lockstep sequence, research indicates that students typically develop awareness of larger sound units such as words and syllables before mastering smaller units like phonemes (Anthony & Francis, 2005). Beginning readers who can perceive and manipulate these sounds of language are supported as they initially learn to step away from meaning (what sound does “cat” make? “meow”) and treat language as an object of thought independent from meaning (what sound does “cat” make? /c/ /a/ /t/) to decode words as they read.
1. Word awareness
Word awareness often serves as the starting point for developing phonological awareness. It involves understanding that sentences are made up of individual words and that words can be separated.
Key activities:
- Count the words: Say a short phrase and have students count how many words they heard.
- Sentence segmentation: Use clapping or tapping to help students count the number of words in a spoken sentence.
- What comes next?: Begin saying a sentence with a few words and have students predict the next word that should come.
2. Syllable awareness
Syllable awareness builds on word awareness by teaching students to recognize, segment, blend, and manipulate syllables within words.
Key activities:
- Syllable segmentation: Use physical movements (e.g., clapping) to break words into syllables (“butterfly” becomes “but-ter-fly”).
- Syllable blending: Present syllables separately and ask students to blend them to form a word (“pan-cake” becomes “pancake”).
- Syllable deletion: Challenge students to say a word without one of its syllables (“Say ‘pancake’ without ‘pan’”).
3. Onset and rime awareness
Onset and rime awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate the initial sound (onset) and the remaining part of a word (rime).
Key activities:
- Onset identification: Ask students to isolate the first sound in a word (“What’s the first sound in ‘cat’?”).
- Rime matching: Provide several words and have students identify those that share the same rime (“Which words rhyme with ‘bat’?”).
- Onset and rime blending: Give students the onset and rime separately (“/c/ and /at/”) and have them combine the sounds to form a word (“cat”).
4. Phonemic awareness
Phonemic awareness is the most advanced and crucial skill under the phonological awareness umbrella. It involves the ability to focus on and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of sound in spoken language. Phonemic awareness is the primary driver of successful decoding and spelling.
Key activities:
- Phoneme matching: Show students picture cards and ask them to find pairs of pictures with words that sound similar at the beginning or end of the word.
- Phoneme blending: Provide individual phonemes (“/b/ /a/ /t/”) and ask students to blend them into a word (“bat”).
- Phoneme segmentation: Ask students to break a word into its individual sounds (“What sounds do you hear in ‘dog’?”).
- Phoneme deletion: Challenge students to say a word without a specific sound (“Say ‘sand’ without the /s/ sound.”).
Phonemic awareness: The core of the phonological awareness umbrella
Phonemic awareness is often referred to as the “heart” of phonological awareness because of its critical role in learning to read. Research shows that phonemic awareness directly supports the development of decoding and fluent reading, making it one of the strongest predictors of early reading success (Adams, 1990; Moats, 2020). Moreover, phonemic awareness interventions yield some of the highest effect sizes in improving reading outcomes (National Reading Panel, 2000; Ehri et al., 2001).
Phonemic awareness serves as a critical bridge to phonics instruction, providing the foundational skill necessary for decoding written text. This connection highlights the importance of the alphabetic principle—the understanding that graphemes (letters) represent phonemes (sounds) in spoken language. Mastery of this principle enables students to map spoken language onto print, a fundamental step in learning to read and spell effectively (Lyon, 1998; National Reading Panel, 2000). By acquiring the alphabetic principle, students can assemble and disassemble graphemes and phonemes to form and decode unique words in English orthography.
The interplay of phonemic awareness and orthographic knowledge
One of the key insights from recent research reveals that phonological, and specifically phonemic, awareness does not develop in isolation. Instead, it interacts dynamically with orthographic knowledge—the understanding of written language patterns and structures. This interplay highlights that phonemic awareness is not an end in itself. For it to effectively support reading development, it must be integrated with explicit phonics instruction (Brady, 2020; Seidenberg, 2017).
Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when paired with explicit teaching of graphemes (Brady, 2020; Seidenberg, 2017). This combined approach bridges the gap between spoken and written language, underscoring that not all phonological awareness practices are equally effective. Activities targeting phonemic awareness, especially when combined with grapheme instruction, have a significantly greater impact on reading development than those focused solely on rhyming sounds or syllables (Ehri, 2014; Brady, 2020). However, activities involving larger units of language (e.g., words, syllables, onsets, and rimes) can serve as playful warm-ups to prepare students for more focused decoding instruction.
Actionable strategies for the classroom
To help educators translate the phonological awareness umbrella into actionable instruction, here are some practical, evidence-based activities:
- Sound sorts: Provide a set of pictures or objects and ask students to sort them based on their initial or final phonemes (sounds).
- Elkonin boxes: Use a grid to help students segment words into individual phonemes (sounds). For example, the word “ship” would be segmented into three boxes: /sh/, /i/, and /p/.
- Oral blending games: Say a word slowly, one phoneme at a time (“/m/ /a/ /t/”), and ask students to identify the word.
Creating a visual aid: The phonological awareness umbrella PDF graphic
To support instruction, we’ve created a downloadable PDF of the phonological awareness umbrella graphic. This poster visually represents the components of phonological awareness, making it easier for educators to explain and reinforce these concepts in the classroom.
A foundation for reading success
The phonological awareness umbrella is more than just a metaphor—it’s a framework for understanding and teaching the foundational skills of early reading. By breaking down the components of word, syllable, onset and rime, and phonemic awareness, educators can create targeted, impactful instruction that prepares students for phonics and decoding. Remember, phonological awareness is a warm-up for the main event: being able to decode and encode unknown words in texts and grow into a confident, proficient reader.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.
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HMH core, intervention, and supplemental programs are rooted in the science of reading. Find out more about our evidence-based approach to teaching a child to read.
References
Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. MIT Press.
Anthony, J. L., & Francis, D. J. (2005). Development of phonological awareness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(5), 255–259. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00376.x
Brady, S. (2020). A 2020 perspective on phonemic awareness. Reading League Journal, 1(2), 45–52.
Cunningham, A. E., & Zibulsky, J. (2014). Book smart: How to develop and support successful, motivated readers. Oxford University Press.
Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(5), 5–21.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.819356
Ehri, L. C., Nunes, S. R., Willows, D. M., Schuster, B. V., Yaghoub-Zadeh, Z., & Shanahan, T. (2001). Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read: Evidence from the National Reading Panel’s meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3), 250–287. https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.36.3.2
Lyon, G. R. (1998). Why reading is not a natural process. Educational Leadership, 55(6), 14–18.
Moats, L. C. (2020). Teaching reading is rocket science: What expert teachers of reading should know and be able to do. American Educator, 44(2), 4.
National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health.
Seidenberg, M. S. (2017). Language at the speed of sight: How we read, why so many can’t, and what can be done about it. Basic Books.
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