ABSTRACT
Phonological awareness is the ability to identify sounds and, in particular, the sounds within words. Phonology deals with speech sounds. Phonics is a common term for linking sounds with letters and letter strings and is a way of teaching reading and spelling. Without a good phonological awareness many children struggle with phonics. It is therefore crucial for young children to understand that speech is made up of words and that those words can be broken down into phonemes. They must then learn the graphemes that represent these units of sound if they are to be able to read or spell fluently. Synthetic phonics is a system where children learn up to 44 phonemes and their related graphemes. This approach works very well if the word is phonetically regular. In practice, learners need to engage with both approaches to become successful readers and spellers.
