Which activity helps children identify which sound is common among a group of words?

Phoneme identity is an activity that specifically helps children recognize and identify a common sound shared among a group of words. This skill is essential in developing phonemic awareness, which is critical for reading development. In phoneme identity activities, students may be asked questions like, "What sound do you hear at the beginning of 'cat,' 'cap,' and 'cane'?" This encourages them to focus on the sounds that occur in different words and recognize their similarities.

In contrast, other activities focus on different aspects of phonemic awareness. Phoneme isolation involves identifying individual sounds within a word, phoneme segmentation breaks a word down into its component sounds, and phoneme manipulation requires children to add, delete, or substitute sounds in words. Each of these activities serves a different purpose in reading instruction, but it is phoneme identity that targets the recognition of a shared sound across multiple words.