What is commonly associated with phonological awareness in children?

Phonological awareness is a critical skill in early literacy development that focuses on children's ability to recognize and manipulate the sound structures of spoken language. This includes skills such as identifying and working with sounds at the level of words, syllables, and individual phonemes.

When children demonstrate sensitivity to the sound structure of language, they can detect patterns in sounds, segment words into syllables, blend sounds to form words, and manipulate phonemes within words. This foundational skill is essential for them as they learn to read and write, as it allows them to understand that words are made up of individual sounds, which will help them decode written language later on.

While knowledge of phonics, the ability to read fluently, and awareness of letter shapes are all important aspects of literacy, they are not specifically the same as phonological awareness. Phonics deals with the relationship between sounds and their corresponding letters, fluency is about the ability to read text smoothly and expressively, and awareness of letter shapes pertains to recognizing how letters are visually represented. Thus, the sensitivity to the sound structure of language is the core element that constitutes phonological awareness.