Development of PhonologicalAwarenessJason L. Anthony1and David J. Francis21Division of Developmental Pediatrics, University of Texas Health Science Center and2Department of Psychology, University of HoustonABSTRACT—Phonological awareness is critical for learningto read in alphabetic languages like English. This reportsummarizes normal development of phonological aware-ness as it has been revealed through recent multidisciplinaryand cross-cultural research. We argue that a consensus onthe definition of phonological awareness has emerged, thatresearch has identified a general sequence of phonologicalawareness development that is universal across languages,and that certain characteristics of spoken and written lan-guages influence the rate of normal development and levelsof phonological awareness that are normally achieved.KEYWORDS—literacy; phonolog ical awarenessDyslexia is a brain-based diso rder that causes individuals tostruggle with learning to read, despite having normal intelli-gence, adequate schooling, and intact sensory abilities. Preva-lence rates for dyslexia range from 5% to 10%, depending on theprimary language spoken in a population and the criteria used toidentify the disorder. The underlying cause of dyslexia is diffi-culty processing the sounds in one’s language, or phonologicalprocessing.Research has identified three phonological processing abili-ties. Phonological memory refers to coding information in asound-based representation system for temporary storage. Pho-nological access to lexical storage refers to the efficiency of retri-eving phonological codes from memory. Phonological awarenessrefers to one’s degree of sensitivity to the sound structure of orallanguage. These abilities are highly interrelated, are stronglyrelated to reading acquisition, and are highly stable individualdifferences from late preschool on.Phonological awareness is the phonological processing abilitymost strongly related to literacy. It encompasses phoneme aware-ness, the ability to manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) inwords, and rudimentary phonol ogical skills, such as judgingwhether two words rhyme. Basically, individuals who have dif-ficulty detecting or manipulating sounds in words will strugglewith learning to read. Four decades of research have establishedthis relation, and it is evident in all alphabetic languages studiedto date. Moreover, randomized intervention studies demonstratethat there is a causal relationship, as intensive instruction inphonological awareness improves literacy. For example, theNational Reading Panel’s 2000 report to the U.S. Congress,which described a meta-analysis of 52 controlled experimentalstudies published in peer-reviewed journals, concluded that pho-nological awareness instruction has moderate and statisticallysignificant effects on reading and spelling abilities and that ex-plicit instruction is beneficial for typically developing children,for young children at risk for reading difficulties, and for poorreaders.DEFINITION OF PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESSNumerous definitions of phonological awareness have been of-fered, each with relatively well-developed theoreti cal under-pinnings and some empirica l support. Alternative definitionsvary in generality from highly exclusive to highly inclusi ve ofdifferent phonolog ical awareness skills. Phonological awarenessskills are distinguished by the task performed and size of the unitof sound that is the focus of the task. Examples of differentphonological awareness skills that are distinguished by the typeof task performed include blending sounds together, separating(segmenting) words into their constituent sounds, recombiningsounds of words, and judging whether two words have somesounds in common. Distinctions among phonological awarenessskills based on unit of word structure include whether syllablesare the focus of the task or whether smaller intrasyllabic units,like onsets, rimes, or phonemes, are the focus. The onset is theinitial consonant or consonant cluster present in many, but notall, English syllables; the rime is the remaining vowel andconsonants. (For example, in the word spin, sp is the onset; in isAddress correspondence to Jason Anthony, University of Texas HealthScience Center, Division of Developmental Pediatrics, 7000 FanninSt., Suite 2377, Houston TX, 77030; e-mail: [email protected] DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCEVolume 14—Number 5 255Copyright r 2005 American Psychological Societythe rime; and /s/, /p/, /I/, and /n/ are the phonemes.) Debate overwhich phonological skills belong to the construct of interest hasdirectly influenced literacy curr iculum and instruction, withsome curricula emphasizing phoneme aware ness and reading bysound–letter correspondences and other curricula emphasizingonset–rime awareness and reading by rime analogies (e.g.,reading a new word, like string, by analogizing from familiarwords that have the same rime unit, like sing and wing).Methodologically sound studies using large samples, multiplemeasures, and advanced statistics support a unified phonologi-cal awareness construct—that is, phonolog ical awareness as asingle cognitive ability that manifests behaviorally in a variety ofskills. Anthony et al. (2002) used confirmatory factor analysisand a factorial design that crossed word structure and task todemonstrate that a one-factor model best characterized thephonological awareness skills of 258 2- to 5-year-old children.Anthony and Lonigan (2004) reported four independen t con-firmatory factor-analytic studies that yielded similar findingswith over 1,200 2- to 8-year-old children. A unified phonologicalawareness ability was also supported by two recent studiesemploying item response theory. One studied 945 elementaryschool children (Schatschneider et al., 1999), and anotherstudied over 1,100 preschool children (Anthony et al., 2003).Moreover, latent-variable longitudinal research using structuralequation modeling consistently reports near-perfect stability ofindividual differences in phonological awareness across timeand across different phonological awareness skills (e.g., Anth-ony & Lonigan, 2004).In summary, persuasive evidence now exists that phonologicalawareness is heterotypically continuous. That is, phonologicalawareness is a single, unified ability during the preschool andearly elementary school years that manifests itself in differentskills throughout a person’s development. Thus, there is con-sensus that