Which literacy concept refers to the ability to manipulate individual sounds in spoken words?

• A. Phonemic awareness
• B. Phonological awareness
• C. Reading Fluency
• D. Vocabulary

Answer: (B)

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds—phonemes—in spoken words. This includes tasks like blending phonemes to form a word, segmenting a word into its separate sounds, and changing a sound to create a new word. These activities focus on the smallest units of sound in speech, and they are specific to sound manipulation rather than meaning or reading speed. This skill sits within phonological awareness, which also covers larger sound units such as rhymes and syllables. The other terms describe different abilities: phonological awareness encompasses more than just individual sounds, reading fluency is about smooth and fast reading, and vocabulary concerns word meanings.