Phonological awareness is the growing awareness of sounds within speech, from the largest to smallest units of speech. Typically, young children first learn to identify individual words within spoken sentences, then syllables within words, then individual phonemes within words (called
phonemic awareness). As individual children progress through phases of phonological awareness development, they may show signs of developing more complex levels of PA even as they are still mastering lesser levels (ILA, 2019). This overlapping progression underscores the need for repeated
PA experiences in the classroom.
