Phonological awareness is an individuals awareness of the sound structure of words. It is the foundation for learning to read and is an important and reliable predictor of later reading ability. Phonological awareness involves the detection and manipulation of sounds at three levels of sound structure: syllables, onsets and rimes, and phonemes. Awareness of these sounds is demonstrated through a variety of tasks, such as picking out words that rhyme, counting the number of syllables in a word, and being aware of the individual sounds in a word. Phonological awareness is different from other phonological abilities in that it is a metalinguistic skill, requiring conscious awareness and reflection on the structure of language.

Phonological awareness is an important determiner of success in learning to read and spell. Strong readers usually have strong phonological awareness, while poor readers have poor phonological awareness skills. Phonological awareness skills in the preschool and kindergarten years strongly predict how well a child will read in the school years. Phonological awareness is essential for reading because written words correspond to spoken words. Readers must have awareness of the speech sounds that letters and letter combinations represent in order to move from a printed word to a spoken word (reading), or a spoken word to a written word (spelling).

Phonological awareness is different from phonemic awareness, which is the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is a metalinguistic skill that is essential for learning to read and spell.