Phonological awareness is important to the development of literacy because the reader cannot sound out words without phonological skills. Part of phonological awareness is phonemic awareness, the ability to identify and manipulate sounds in words. It also includes the knowledge that words can be broken down to their individual sounds. When children understand how to segment words, sound by sound, they are ready to learn how to read.
Phonological awareness is also important for literacy development when children begin reading words and sentences. In this stage, they combine what they know about sounds with alphabet recognition. Children must understand this letter/sound correspondence when they begin reading. Without phonological awareness, children will interpret text as a random display of letters instead of seeing them as words that have meaning.
Fluency is the ability to read with accuracy, expression and at a rate that sustains smooth reading and understanding. Children with phonological awareness can achieve this advanced skill because they know how to sound out words, use context clues to figure out unknown words and can read with automaticity. When children have proficient word identification skills, they can move on to concentrate on to more advanced comprehension.
Phonological awareness is the foundation of literacy development because it is essential in reading comprehension. If children spend the majority of their time trying to figure out words by memorizing by sight instead of sounding them out, they often won't remember what they read about or be able to summarize or retain information. Comprehension is the main goal of reading and is crucial to literacy development. If children cannot comprehend, they are just seeing words without meaning.