Phonological awareness is the understanding of the correspondence of letters with their sounds, so being able to know that the letter "t" says "t-uh" helps a child to decode a word when they are presented with a word that they don't immediately recognize. Strengthening phonological awareness is a key component to improving reading, and there are a number of programs that focus on phonological awareness through repetition, training and practice. For example one program that has been empirically supported in helping with reading problems is called the Lindamood-Bell Program, and they focus on strengthening phonological awareness as a key component of their program. There is also an approach, it's not the name of the treatment program, called the Orton-Gillingham Approach, and again, the core concept there is to strengthen phonological awareness as a way to improve reading.