Phonological awareness is the ability to attend to the phonological or sound structure of language as distinct from its meaning. Types of phonological awareness include word awareness, syllable awareness, rhyme awareness, and phonemic awareness.
Phonemes are the elementary speech sounds represented by the letters of a perfect alphabet.
Our alphabet, the English alphabet, is not perfect. Phonemic awareness is a sub-category of phonological awareness. Children who struggle with dyslexia often have trouble rhyming words, blending sounds into words and segmenting words. Therefore, teaching these students phonemic awareness and discrimination among phonemes becomes imperative. Intervention for learners who have this difficulty must be early if at all possible, strategic, systematic and carefully designed.