What aspect of language does enhancing phonological awareness aim to improve for preschoolers?

Enhancing phonological awareness primarily aims to improve a child's ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds in spoken language, which has a direct influence on their overall speech intelligibility. Phonological awareness involves skills such as recognizing rhymes, counting syllables, identifying beginning sounds, and blending and segmenting sounds. When preschoolers develop these skills, they can articulate words more clearly and accurately, which leads to better intelligibility of their speech.

While vocabulary size, morphological structures, and pragmatic flexibility are essential components of language development, they are not the primary focus of phonological awareness activities. Phonological awareness specifically targets the auditory processing of sounds in language rather than the broader aspects of vocabulary or grammatical structure. Thus, the correct choice highlights the direct relationship between phonological awareness and speech clarity.