Do You Know the Difference — Phonological Awareness Skill Set vs. Phonics?

The Common Core and State Standards all agree—reading success starts with and depends upon phonological awareness skills. There are two types of skills needed for reading proficiency: innate skills and learned skills. Phonological awareness is an innate skill. Phonics is a learned skill.

Innate skills embody the ability of the brain to process information. Memory is an innate skill.

Learned skills involve acquiring content and the ability to use content that has been learned. Language or math is a learned skill.

Innate brain skills can be improved through training. Training is a process of skill reinforcement through intense repetition.

Learned skills can be taught. Teaching is a process of introducing content. A simple formula for achieving reading proficiency could be illustrated by the following:

Reading Proficiency = Training of innate skills x Teaching of content

Phonological (phonemic) awareness is an innate brain skill. It is the ability to recognize, understand and manipulate the sounds of a language, any language. It includes the capacity to identify, drop, blend and segment phonemes (sounds). Phonics, on the other hand, is a learned skill that defines the relationship between language sounds and written codes. It is content specific to a particular language. The phonics for Russian, for example, is different from the phonics of English, with different language sounds and written codes for each. However, phonological (phonemic) awareness, the innate ability of a student to understand and manipulate sounds, is common for both languages.

Teaching and drilling on phonics may improve phonemic awareness skills, but when a child enters first grade with a weak phonemic awareness skill set (often already one to three years behind other students), the process of catching up and becoming a proficient reader will be difficult. Training, not just teaching, is needed. Several independent studies have shown that most (80% or more) of struggling readers have weak phonemic awareness skills as the primary cause of their reading difficulties. Studies have also proven that most reading difficulties can be prevented or resolved through intensive one-on-one training of phonemic awareness skills combined with adequate reading instruction.

Strong phonemic awareness skills are the cornerstone of reading proficiency, the foundation on which subsequent learning depends, and the key to improving STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) scores. They are the focus of our CogRead Literacy Campaigns. We sponsor access to online evaluations and exercises that screen and strengthen innate brain skills!