What skill requires students to break a word into its individual sounds?

Phoneme segmentation is the skill that involves breaking a word down into its individual sounds, or phonemes. This skill is essential for developing reading and spelling abilities because it helps students understand the components that make up words. For instance, in the word "cat," phoneme segmentation would involve recognizing and articulating the individual sounds /k/, /æ/, and /t/.

This process allows students to analyze how sounds come together to form words, which is critical for phonemic awareness. Being able to segment words into phonemes supports students in various literacy tasks, such as decoding unfamiliar words or spelling correctly. This skill is foundational for reading development, as it enhances a student's ability to interact with text more effectively.

In contrast, phoneme mixing combines sounds to form a word, while phoneme blending involves merging sounds into a single auditory unit, showcasing the reverse process of segmentation. Phoneme recognition refers to simply identifying sounds within words but does not involve breaking them down into segments.