For example the word ‘cat’ is made up of three sounds ‘c’ ‘a’ and ‘t’.

There is a developmental order of acquiring phonological awareness (Linda Schreiber 2010).

The first level of awareness is word awareness.

The second level of awareness is syllable awareness and this typically starts to develop at around four to five-years-of-age. A syllable can be described as a beat in a word. Words can therefore be split into syllables. For example the word ‘elephant’ has three syllables ‘e’ ‘le’ and ‘phant’.

Being syllable aware means being able to segment words into syllables, blend syllables into words, delete syllables and manipulate, ie, change the order of the syllables in a word.

The third level is onset and rime. This can be described as splitting a word into its  beginning sound and then the rest of the word. For example the word ‘pit’ becomes ‘p’ + ‘it’.

The fourth level is rhyme. Awareness of rhyme usually starts to emerge at the age of 3years and continues to refine up to the age of 7-years. Being aware of rhyme means being able to identify, generate, judge and categorise rhymes.

The highest level of phonological awareness is phonemic awareness which typically develops at the age of 6 to 7-years. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are made up of individual sounds or phonemes and the ability to manipulate these phonemes either by segmenting, blending, or changing individual phonemes within words to create new words. For example removing the sound ‘s’ from the word ‘post’ to make the new word ‘pot’.

Providing a child with phonological awareness training will improve their reading ability. Anthony and Francis (2011)

Therefore it is important that a teaching programme for a dyslexic child should contain:

• Phonological processing activities
• Alphabet knowledge
• Spelling – phonetic (using a good phonics programme)
• Spelling – irregular and high frequency words
• Reading and writing
• Memory activities
• Regular revision and over learning
• Intervention for other associated difficulties such as organisational skills.

Phonological processing activities are devised around the different levels previously described. An example would be to identify the same initial sound in two words and name it.

Assistive technology

Because of the extra effort that dyslexic learners have to put into their school work, especially in subjects reliant on a lot of text, they are encouraged to use assistive technology. Using this type of technology will help to reduce the extra burden for them.

There is a wide array of assistive technology available such as text to speech and speech to text software.

References:

Krysia Sivyer, Speech, Language and Dyslexia Consultancy (SLDC) Ltd.

ANTHONY, J. L. and FRANCIS, D. J. (2011) Development of phonological awareness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14 (5), pp. 255 – 259.

Written by Rachel Harrison

Speech and Language Therapist

On behalf of ITS

Image rights courtesy of www.pixabay.com