Teaching & Learning Page

What is Phonological Awareness?

Phonological awareness is your child’s ability to hear and play with the sounds in words. 

It includes:

• Hearing rhymes
• Clapping syllables
• Noticing first sounds
• Blending sounds together (/c/ /a/ /t/)
• Breaking words into sounds

Think of it as “ear training” for reading.

Why is it important?

It’s one of the strongest predictors of future reading success .

Before children can match letters to sounds, they need to be able to hear those sounds clearly. Strong sound awareness makes learning to read and spell much smoother.

How we teach it in Foundation

We teach it every day through short, playful activities:

• Songs and rhymes
• Sound games (“I spy something that starts with /m/…”)
• Clapping and tapping syllables
• Stretching and squashing sounds

When your child says they were “chopping up words”, they’re building the foundations for confident reading.

At Surfside, we believe strong foundations matter. We make learning explicit, joyful, and consistent, so every child builds the skills they need to become confident, capable readers - one sound at a time.