foneemiteadlikkust

Foneemiteadlikkus refers to a person's awareness of the individual sounds, or phonemes, that make up spoken words. This is a fundamental skill in language development and is strongly correlated with reading and spelling abilities. It involves recognizing that words are composed of smaller sound units, such as consonants and vowels, and being able to manipulate these sounds.

For example, a person with foneemiteadlikkus can identify the initial sound in a word like "cat" (/k/), the final sound (/t/), or recognize that "cat" and "hat" rhyme because they share the same ending sound. They can also segment a word into its individual phonemes, breaking "dog" down into /d/, /o/, and /g/. Conversely, they can blend these sounds back together to form the word.

Developing foneemiteadlikkus typically occurs in early childhood and is often nurtured through activities like rhyming games, singing songs, and explicitly teaching about sounds in words. Difficulties in developing this skill can lead to challenges in learning to read and write, as decoding written words often requires mapping letters to their corresponding sounds. Therefore, foneemiteadlikkus is considered a crucial prerequisite for literacy acquisition.