Which term refers to the ability to distinguish and manipulate phonemes in spoken words?

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

Answer: (B)

The main concept here is phonemic awareness—the ability to hear, distinguish, and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words. This question describes distinguishing and manipulating phonemes, the smallest sound units like /p/, /æ/, /t/ in a word such as "pat." Being able to tell apart different sounds (distinguish) and to change a word by blending sounds together, breaking a word into its sounds (segmenting), or adding/removing sounds (manipulating) all fall under phonemic awareness. For example, blending /k/ /æ/ /t/ to hear "cat," or breaking "pat" into /p/ /æ/ /t/ demonstrates this skill. This ability supports decoding when reading and is more specific than broader phonological awareness, which also includes larger sound units like rhymes and syllables.