Which concept describes the ability to notice and work with individual sounds in spoken words?

The concept that describes the ability to notice and work with individual sounds in spoken words is phonemic awareness. This skill involves recognizing the smallest units of sound, or phonemes, in any given word, and is crucial for developing reading and spelling abilities. Phonemic awareness allows students to manipulate sounds – for example, blending, segmenting, and deleting sounds in words. It occurs purely in the auditory realm, without any written or visual components involved.

Phonics, on the other hand, pertains to the relationship between letters and the sounds they represent, which is a distinct skill set that builds on phonemic awareness. Phoneme identity refers to recognizing the same sounds in different words, while phoneme segmentation specifically focuses on breaking down words into their individual sounds. While these related concepts are important for literacy development, they do not encompass the broader capability of noticing and working with the individual sounds across spoken language, which is why phonemic awareness is the most fitting answer in this context.