A phonemic awareness assessment can help your child identify a weak cognitive ability that is necessary for learning. Weak cognitive skills are a major factor in most learning disabilities that affect people from all walks of life. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and analyze discrete sounds. It is the cognitive ability that allows us to connect the sounds of speech with the letters of words. There are several stages your children will go through in their learning development, and you can tell if they lack phonemic awareness during each of these stages. If you notice any of the risk factors that indicate a lack of phonemic awareness in your child, we strongly recommend that you schedule a comprehensive phonemic awareness assessment at a qualified learning training center.
Students in pre-kindergarten through kindergarten may lack phonemic awareness. Warning signs to look out for include trouble recognizing rhymes, trouble remembering the names of friends or classmates, and trouble developing normal speech. By the end of first grade, warning signs to look out for include those listed above and if your child has difficulty spelling common words, reading aloud, pronouncing words, combining sounds, and having trouble applying the mechanics of sounds within the words to reading and spelling. .
By the end of second grade, you will continue to see warning signs that will indicate weak phonemic awareness skills. If you find that your child has difficulty remembering simple facts and details, it is important to examine them. Other factors that affect your child at the end of second grade may be difficulty spelling previously studied and commonly seen words, difficulty reading aloud, and difficulty using phonetics to pronounce words.
By the age of five, phonemic awareness is typically established in about 80% of children. The other 20% will continue to show warning signs after age nine and into their teens and beyond. Common signs to look out for are a history of reading and spelling difficulties, an aversion to reading, not wanting to read aloud, or having to spend more time on homework. If you notice any of these symptoms in your child, schedule a comprehensive cognitive skills assessment. An assessment of phonemic awareness will be included in this general assessment in a quality learning training center. This test will also indicate any other weak cognitive abilities that may become or already a problem for your child. By taking this test, you will help prevent future learning disabilities, ensuring that your child learns in a healthy way for the rest of his life. The training and learning center will develop a plan to strengthen this cognitive ability.
To further emphasize the importance of strong phonemic awareness skills, the Institute for Child Health and Development found that 88% of reading difficulties were the result of weak phonemic awareness. This was found during a ten-year study from 1985 to 1995. Be sure to give your child a test if you notice any of the warning signs and difficulties listed above. Its future depends on your action.