Phonological awareness describes a child's development of the ability to recognize, discriminate, and manipulate the sounds in one's language.  

At the preschool level, phonological awareness consists of skills such as identifying and making oral rhymes, hearing alliteration, and clapping out syllables. 

Phonological awareness has strong research support as a predictor of later literacy success. 

For example, phonological awareness forms the basis of early decoding and spelling ability which are correlated with later reading and spelling achievement.

The ELS assesses this item across a single strand. The following page will provide more detailed information about this strand.

Number and Numerical Operations strands