Phonological and Phonemic Awareness. What is the difference?



Phonological and phonemic awareness are often confused by teachers, and rightly so.  They are so intertwined it is difficult to determine which skills fall under which term.  I hope to clear up some of the confusion about these two terms and help you better understand phonemic and phonological awareness.  

Phonological and Phonemic awareness - what is the difference? This post outlines the differences between the two terms and gives suggestions about when to teach phonemic awareness and where to start. A free screener is shared to help teachers get started.



Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that encompasses phonemic awareness.  

However, you will most often hear the term phonemic awareness, and most often, it is often used to refer to all the skills that are a part of phonemic and phonological awareness.   

To avoid confusion and follow the common practice, I will also refer to these skills as phonemic awareness.  However, let's consider what distinguishes one from the other first. 






What is Phonemic Awareness?


It is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds or phonemes in spoken words.   It is also the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds.  

All words are a series of phonemes blended together.   Phonemic awareness does not involve print; it is an auditory skill.  For instance:  a child without phonemic awareness may not hear that sun and sit both starts with the same sound.  They may not blend together sounds into words like mmmm... aaaaa... nnnn is man. 


What is Phonological Awareness? 


It encompasses the many ways sounds/phonemes function in words.  It goes beyond just the phoneme level and delves into syllable, rhyme, and onset/rime.  

For instance, a child without phonological awareness would have difficulty with the following skills:  counting the syllables in cup-cake, creating rhyming words for sing or recognizing the onset and rime in c-ake. 


To keep all the skills straight in my head, I keep a quick reference sheet handy to refer to.  You can download it for free by clicking on the image.  




How is Phonemic Awareness different than Phonological Awareness? 


Phonemic awareness is all about the phonemes -  the sounds in spoken language and how we manipulate them to make words. It involves isolating phonemes - the first sound in cat is /c/and manipulating phonemes: for example, change the /c/ to /b/ in cat to get bat.  

Phonological awareness expands that skill beyond just the phoneme to include explicit teaching around onset/rime: c-at, syllables: cat has 1 syllable, and rhyming: cat, mat, bat, hat... 


When should I teach Phonemic Awareness? 


Phonemic awareness is a precursor to reading.  Children must be able to hear the phonemes (or sounds) in spoken language.   

Ideally, children coming from kindergarten will have had lots of phonemic awareness instruction and have solid phonemic awareness skills.  

However, we all know that children progress at different rates in their learning.  For this reason, as a first-grade teacher, you should be prepared to teach phonemic awareness right from the start of the school year.  

Second and third-grade teachers who have students who are struggling to read should also assess their student’s phonemic awareness to see if there are still gaps holding their students back. 

How do I know where to start? 


Using a screener is an effective way to identify where your student is at with their phonemic awareness development.  

Screening your students does take time, but it is time well spent to inform your individualized and whole group instruction. 


download a free screener to help you assess the phonemic awareness skills of your students




Keep an eye on your inbox for this screener and information about using the screener and what to do once you have data on your students.  

Perhaps you are ready to dive in and start working on phonemic awareness.  Since it's an oral skill, all you need is words to get started.  Check out this set of over 200 word lists.  You will have exactly what you need to start your phonemic awareness program! Click the image below to check out the resource.

using phonemic awareness word lists helps to teach phonemic awareness skills


Take a moment to pin this post so you can refer back to it later.

Phonological and Phonemic awareness - what is the difference? This post outlines the differences between the two terms and gives suggestions about when to teach phonemic awareness and where to start. A free screener is shared to help teachers get started.


Are you ready for some ideas about what to do with that data? Hop over to my next blog post for a few ideas. Click the image below to head to the next post.  

Phonemic Awareness; using data to drive instruction

Until next time,

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