It might seem like an extravagant claim; that all children can learn to read and write to very high levels of competence. However, I believe that existing research shows how to do just that.

Phonological Awareness: The Essential Prerequisite in Learning to Read.

Over the years many myths have developed about how to teach reading. One of the most influential and misleading of these myths involved the issue of decoding. Written text is in the form of a code for spoken language. The process of reading requires the reader to ‘crack the code’ or decode the text.

In the past it has been suggested that decoding should be taught by reading meaningful text, and that teaching should always focus on meaningful activities. This is not the case. Research shows that in order to learn to read and become literate, it is essential that students separate meaning from an awareness of ‘language’ as an object. For example, if I asked you, ‘which is a bigger word; butterfly or bus?’ You would say ‘butterfly’. However, young children would say ‘bus’, because, as everyone knows, buses are much bigger than butterflies. Very young children cannot separate the concept of ‘word’ from the meaning of the word. Seeing language as an object requires a higher-order level of thinking than simply being able to understand the meaning that language conveys.

Although it appears counter-intuitive to suggest that to become literate, children must ignore meaning and focus on language as an object, research shows that the ability to focus on the meaningless aspects of language is critical in learning to read.

One aspect of language that is particularly potent in predicting the ability to learn to read is called ‘phonological awareness’. Children who have high levels of phonological awareness before learning to read are likely to become proficient readers. Children who lack phonological awareness are likely to find learning to read extremely difficult. Phonological awareness refers to an individual’s ability to detect the sound structure of language. It should be noted that phonological awareness is a purely oral skill. It has nothing to do with written letters or words.

There are a number of aspects of phonological awareness. The one that seems to develop first for most children is awareness of rhyme. For example, if children can tell you a word that rhymes with ‘cat’ (eg bat, fat, sat, or mat), they have awareness of rhyme. The ‘rime’ in a word refers to the vowel and final consonant or consonants (eg ‘at’ in ‘cat’ ,or ‘ain’ in ‘train’). Rhyming words share the same rime.

Following awareness of rhyme children develop awareness of what is called ‘onset’. Onset refers to the initial consonant or consonant cluster in a word. For example, the onset in the word ‘sand’ is the sound ‘sss’. The onset in the word ‘stand’ is ‘st’.

One final aspect of phonological awareness that is important is something called a ‘phoneme’. A phoneme is the smallest unit of language. It is a single speech sound (eg ‘sss’, or ‘rrrr’, or ‘mmm’). Thus, a child who has awareness of onset would say that the word ‘stand’ begins with ‘st’. However, a child who has awareness of phonemes can pull apart (or segment) the initial blends in words and would say that the word ‘stand’ begins with ‘s’.

Phonological awareness predicts the ability to read better than any other factor. While researchers disagree on precisely which aspects of phonological awareness are the most potent in facilitating children’s ability to learn to read. It is clear that rhyme tends to be the earliest skill to develop but is the least important in later reading. Most research suggests that the ability to identify onset is critical in learning to read.

Researchers disagree on whether it is necessary for children to be able to identify single phonemes before learning to read – some argue that the ability to identify phonemes develops as a result of reading. However, in a study we conducted we found that children who could identify single phonemes at the beginning of words were enormously privileged when learning to read. For example, children who before they learned to read, could identify the single sound in words that began with blends (eg could say that ‘trip’ begins with ‘t’ not ‘tr’) had reading scores at the end of the year that were up to 10 times the magnitude of children who did not have phonological awareness.

Thus, a large number of studies have shown that children who can hear the sounds in words before they learn to read, learn to read earlier and rarely develop reading difficulties or disabilities. Research also shows that reading difficulties are prevented if children are explicitly taught to be sensitive to the sounds in words.

In our own work, we have found that if children are finding it difficult to learn to read (decode), we check their phonological awareness. It is surprising that we have found students up to the age of 15 years old who could not rhyme or identify initial sounds in words. It is not common for adolescents and adults not to be able to recognise rhyme, after all children as young as three years can develop sensitivity to rhyme. However, a surprising number of 5 to 8 year-olds do not possess phonological awareness.

For those children who do not spontaneously develop phonological awareness, it can be explicitly taught, thus reducing the likelihood of a child experiencing failure in reading. If we find children experiencing difficulties in learning to read, we assess their ability to rhyme and identify initial sounds. Generally, if a child has extreme difficulty in learning to read, the problem is phonological awareness. We have found that it can take as little as two to three weeks to teach a child to rhyme and identify initial sounds. Once they have leant this, we begin the reading program. So far, every child we have worked with who experienced difficulty in learning to decode text, had a problem had problem with phonological awareness. And every child that we first ensured had knowledge of rhyme and onset, later learned to read successfully. In some cases these children had spent many years in special education and remedial programs, yet had failed to learn to read. It is relatively easy to teach phonological awareness. Many preschoolers spontaneously develop it as a result of early experiences with language (eg learning nursery rhymes and playing language games). Nursery rhymes are a good place to start. Then, they can play with nonsense games that help them explore the sound structure of language. For example, every child knows the line:

Jack and Jill went up the hill.

This can be changed to something that makes sense but doesn’t rhyme, so that it sounds completely wrong, for example:

Jack and Jill went up the road.

Next they can play with words that rhyme but make no sense.

Jack and Jill went up the pill.

The aim of these activities is to provide fun and enjoyable experiences that will build children’s ability to identify rhyming words. You will know that children have sensitivity to rhyme when they can tell you a word that rhymes with some common words (eg train, cat, light). If children can think of nonsense words that rhyme, then that is fine – they understand the concept of rhyme (eg a rhyming word for train is smain).

When children can rhyme, they need to develop awareness of initial sounds. The game ‘I Spy’ is a good way to teach children sensitivity to initial sounds. You can also develop worksheets which will help with the skill. Create a row of four pictures. The first picture represents the target word (eg sun). The other three pictures have one word that begins with the same sound as the target word (eg seal), the other two are distracters (eg flower and moon). The child should identify the picture which starts with the same sound as the target word (‘sun’). You can use this same kind of activity with rhyme. Remember phonological awareness is an oral skill, so you should not show children the written words.

It is surprising that just a few simple games can actively promote children’s ability to read but the research is clear – phonological awareness is the essential prerequisite to reading; without it many children experience many years of failure which could have been so easily prevented.

Carol A. Christensen is from the School of Education, The University of Queensland