What is the process of breaking a word into its separate sounds called?

The process of breaking a word into its separate sounds is known as phoneme segmentation. This skill is crucial in helping students understand the individual sounds that make up a word, which is essential for developing reading and spelling abilities. Phoneme segmentation allows learners to identify each distinct sound or phoneme in a word, which can aid in decoding unfamiliar words when reading and in encoding words when writing.

For instance, if a child is asked to segment the word "cat," they would recognize the three separate sounds /k/, /æ/, and /t/. This foundational skill contributes significantly to their overall phonemic awareness, which is vital for reading development.

The other options reflect different aspects of phonemic awareness but do not refer to the process of breaking words into sounds. Phoneme isolation involves identifying a specific sound in a word, phoneme manipulation refers to the ability to change, add, or delete sounds in a word, and phoneme blending is the process of combining individual sounds to form a word. Each of these skills plays a role in literacy but is distinct from the act of segmentation.