Which concept refers to the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words, and to understand that words and syllables are made of sequences of sounds?

• A. Phonemic awareness
• B. Phonics
• C. Phonics knowledge
• D. Decoding

Answer: (A)

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words, and to understand that words and syllables are made of sequences of sounds. This skill involves recognizing and working with individual phonemes—blending them to form words, segmenting a word into its separate sounds, and manipulating sounds to make new words. It’s purely about sounds in spoken language, not about letters. That’s why it’s the best choice here.

Phonics, by contrast, focuses on the relationship between sounds and letters and how to use that link to read and spell. Decoding is the process of sounding out written words using those sound-letter correspondences. Phonics knowledge refers to understanding those sound-letter relationships.