A teacher divides her class into groups and asks the students to identify the last sound in each group member's name. What skill has the teacher asked her students to practice?

A teacher divides her class into groups and asks the students to identify the last sound in each group member's name. What skill has the teacher asked her students to practice?

• A. Phoneme blending
• B. Decoding
• C. Phoneme segmentation
• D. Syllable segmentation

Answer: (C)

This item centers on isolating the final sound in a spoken word, which is phoneme segmentation. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound, and segmentation is the act of breaking a word apart into its individual sounds. By asking for the last sound in each name, the teacher is requiring students to hear and pull out the final phoneme, demonstrating their ability to segment spoken language into sounds. Phoneme segmentation differs from blending, which would have students put sounds together to say a word; decoding, which involves turning letters into sounds to read a word; and syllable segmentation, which focuses on dividing a word into syllables rather than its individual phonemes. For example, in the name Tom, the final sound to identify is /m/.

This item centers on isolating the final sound in a spoken word, which is phoneme segmentation. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound, and segmentation is the act of breaking a word apart into its individual sounds. By asking for the last sound in each name, the teacher is requiring students to hear and pull out the final phoneme, demonstrating their ability to segment spoken language into sounds.

Phoneme segmentation differs from blending, which would have students put sounds together to say a word; decoding, which involves turning letters into sounds to read a word; and syllable segmentation, which focuses on dividing a word into syllables rather than its individual phonemes. For example, in the name Tom, the final sound to identify is /m/.