Which phonemic awareness skill involves breaking down words into individual phonemes?

The skill that involves breaking down words into individual phonemes is known as sound segmentation. This process requires individuals to listen to a word and identify each part or segment that makes up that word, isolating its individual sounds. For example, the word "cat" can be segmented into three phonemes: /k/, /æ/, and /t/.

Sound segmentation is a critical component of phonemic awareness as it helps in the development of reading and spelling skills. By practicing this skill, learners become more adept at recognizing the sounds that make up spoken words, which is fundamental for decoding words in written language.

In contrast, sound blending involves putting together individual phonemes to form a word, sound matching requires recognizing words that have the same sound, and sound isolation entails identifying a specific phoneme within a word. Each of these skills contributes to overall phonemic awareness, but sound segmentation is specifically focused on breaking words down into their smallest sound units.