The acquisition of reading and writing involves the progressive development of linguistic and cognitive skills that enable children to understand the relationship between oral language and its written representation. Among these skills, phonological awareness plays an important role because it involves the ability to identify and consciously manipulate the sound structure of spoken language.
Phonological awareness is a broad concept that includes sensitivity to rhyme and syllable structure, as well as the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes. Phonemic awareness refers specifically to the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest sound units of spoken language. This distinction is relevant to speech and language therapy because intervention activities can be organized progressively, moving from larger phonological units toward increasingly complex operations involving individual phonemes.
The Relationship Between Phonological Awareness and Reading Acquisition
The importance of phonological processing for reading development is supported by extensive research. A comprehensive meta-analysis examined 235 studies and 995 effect sizes, investigating the relationships among phonemic awareness, rhyme awareness, verbal short-term memory, and word reading (Melby-Lervåg et al., 2012). In unselected samples, phonemic awareness was the strongest correlate of individual differences in word reading, while children with dyslexia showed substantial deficits in phonemic awareness.
The relationship between phonological awareness and literacy is also supported by intervention research. Findings from an intervention study indicate that phoneme awareness and letter–sound knowledge contribute to the development of children’s early literacy skills, including word-level reading and spelling (Hulme et al., 2012). These findings are particularly relevant to speech and language therapy because they support the integration of phonological activities with emerging literacy skills rather than treating phonological exercises as isolated activities.
Practical Activities for Developing Phonological Awareness
Intervention can begin with activities targeting syllable awareness. Children can be asked to divide familiar words into syllables and identify the number of syllables in each word. For example, the word potato can be identified as a three-syllable word. The child can then be asked to identify the number of syllables or to identify the initial and final syllables. As this ability becomes more established, activities can progress toward phoneme identification.
At the phonemic level, children can be asked to identify the first or last sound in a word. For example, in the word sun, the initial phoneme is /s/ and the final phoneme is /n/. A subsequent stage involves phonemic segmentation, in which the child analyzes a word as a sequence of individual phonemes: /s/ – /ʌ/ – /n/.
Another important skill is phonemic blending, which involves combining individual phonemes to identify a whole word. The child can be presented successively with the phonemes /s/ – /ʌ/ – /n/ and asked to blend them to identify and pronounce the word sun. The activity can initially be carried out using short and familiar words, with the level of difficulty gradually increasing.
Once segmentation and blending have been consolidated, phonemic manipulation tasks can be introduced. The child may be asked to delete, add, or replace a phoneme. For example, replacing the initial phoneme /k/ in cat with /h/ results in the word hat. In another task, deleting the initial phoneme from cat results in at. Such activities require a higher level of phonemic awareness and can be introduced after the child has developed sufficient control over phoneme identification and segmentation.
Intervention can also include activities involving phoneme–grapheme correspondence. After identifying the sound /m/, the child can be introduced to the corresponding letter m and subsequently encouraged to recognize, pronounce, and use the letter in syllables and words. In this way, phonological activities can be directly connected to decoding and writing development. The importance of incorporating graphemes into phonemic awareness instruction is also supported by intervention research (Rehfeld et al., 2022).
Adapting Intervention for Students with Special Educational Needs
In the case of students with special educational needs (SEN), activities should be adapted to the child’s individual developmental level and specific characteristics. Tasks can be presented gradually, starting with familiar words and simple structures and progressing toward more complex linguistic forms. Short instructions, modeling, repetition, and visual support can facilitate task comprehension and help maintain attention.
For children experiencing difficulties with phonological processing, combining several modes of presenting information may be useful. The child can hear the sound, produce it, associate it with a picture, and subsequently associate it with the corresponding letter. Immediate feedback following task completion can support error correction and consolidation of the correct response.
The effectiveness of phonemic awareness instruction has also been examined in children suspected of having reading disabilities. A meta-analysis drew on data from 138 included manuscripts and found that phonemic awareness instruction can be effective for children of different ages, with significant gains observed particularly in segmentation and blending (Rehfeld et al., 2022). The authors also emphasized the value of incorporating graphemes into phonemic awareness instruction.
For children and adolescents with developmental speech and/or language disorders, recent evidence provides further support for interventions targeting phonological processing. A systematic review and meta-analysis identified 22 eligible studies and found significant, large effects of oral language interventions on phonological awareness and phonological short-term memory (Laasonen et al., 2026). Larger effects were also observed under certain conditions, including interventions based on an integrated theoretical approach and interventions delivered in small groups.
Transfer to Reading and Writing
An important goal of intervention is to ensure that skills developed through phonological exercises are transferred to authentic reading and writing contexts. After practicing phonemic segmentation, the child can be encouraged to identify the corresponding letters, construct the word, and then read it. Similarly, after completing a phonemic substitution task, the child can observe the corresponding change in the written form of the word, for example, cat → hat.
This connection between phonological processing and written language allows speech and language therapy activities to be integrated into broader literacy objectives. It also creates opportunities for children to apply newly acquired phonological skills during reading and writing activities rather than using them exclusively within structured intervention tasks.
Conclusions
Phonological awareness, and particularly phonemic awareness, represents an important component of the development of reading and writing skills. Research supports the relevance of phonological processing to reading development and provides evidence for the use of structured and progressive interventions. In speech and language therapy practice, activities involving syllable awareness, phoneme identification, segmentation, blending, and phoneme manipulation can be adapted to each child’s individual characteristics and connected with phoneme–grapheme correspondence, decoding, and writing. For students with SEN, individualizing tasks and gradually increasing their difficulty can help align intervention with the child’s current developmental level and individual pace of learning.
References
Hulme, C., Bowyer-Crane, C., Carroll, J. M., Duff, F. J., & Snowling, M. J. (2012). The causal role of phoneme awareness and letter-sound knowledge in learning to read: Combining intervention studies with mediation analyses. Psychological Science, 23(6), 572–577. doi.org/10.1177/0956797611435921
Laasonen, M., Sanduvete-Chaves, S., Chacón-Moscoso, S., Alves, D. C., Ozbič, M., Petinou, K., Tolonen, A.-K., Zajdó, K., Frizelle, P., Murphy, C.-A., Saldaña, D., & Kunnari, S. (2026). Intervention effects on phonological processing in children with developmental speech and/or language disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies with group design. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 61(3), e70252. doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.70252
Melby-Lervåg, M., Lyster, S.-A. H., & Hulme, C. (2012). Phonological skills and their role in learning to read: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 138(2), 322–352. doi.org/10.1037/a0026744
Rehfeld, D. M., Kirkpatrick, M., O’Guinn, N., & Renbarger, R. (2022). A meta-analysis of phonemic awareness instruction provided to children suspected of having a reading disability. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 53(4), 1177–1201. doi.org/10.1044/2022_LSHSS-21-00160