Oregon Educator Licensure Assessments (ORELA) Practice Exam

What is the first step in phonemic awareness activities for children?

1. Phoneme isolation

2. Phoneme substitution

3. Phoneme blending

4. Phoneme segmentation

The correct answer is: Phoneme isolation

Phoneme isolation is crucial as it lays the foundational skill for children to recognize and manipulate individual sounds within words. This initial step involves identifying sounds at the beginning, middle, or end of a word, enabling young learners to notice distinct phonetic elements. By mastering phoneme isolation, children develop a greater awareness of sounds, which is essential for further phonemic awareness activities like blending, segmentation, and substitution. For instance, if a child can isolate the initial sound in the word "cat," they can more effectively blend those sounds together to form the word or segment it into its individual sounds later on. Overall, phoneme isolation sets the stage for a child's phonemic development, making it the most logical first step in phonemic awareness activities.