Which term means the process of breaking down words into separate sounds?

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Multiple Choice

Which term means the process of breaking down words into separate sounds?

Segmentation is the ability to break a spoken word into its individual sounds, the phonemes. When you segment, you hear the sequence of sounds that make up the word. For example, the word cat can be spoken as /k/ /æ/ /t/, showing its separate sounds. This skill is foundational for decoding and spelling because it helps students map sounds to letters and blend them back together to form words. Phoneme isolation, by contrast, focuses on identifying a single sound inside a word rather than breaking the whole word into all its sounds. A morpheme is a meaningful unit like a prefix or suffix, not just a sound. Prosody is about the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech, not breaking words into sounds.

Segmentation is the ability to break a spoken word into its individual sounds, the phonemes. When you segment, you hear the sequence of sounds that make up the word. For example, the word cat can be spoken as /k/ /æ/ /t/, showing its separate sounds. This skill is foundational for decoding and spelling because it helps students map sounds to letters and blend them back together to form words.

Phoneme isolation, by contrast, focuses on identifying a single sound inside a word rather than breaking the whole word into all its sounds. A morpheme is a meaningful unit like a prefix or suffix, not just a sound. Prosody is about the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech, not breaking words into sounds.

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